Rove '72

Hey Rod, I have reconsidered my last post, and you're right--I'll grant it's at least a little over the top. Maybe more than a little. But as for my thinking that Rove is a very bad guy, I'll stand by that. Human--sadly, yes. But there wasn't a hint of your "feral" assesment in that fun-filled glance back at the Nixon White House and the young buck with the semi-long hair down in the basement. Is our fellow human Karl Rove more on the side of the good guys, Rod? Or is he mostly a bad man? Is he wise, or is he cunning? As for your recent renouncing of your pro-war stance, I've probably been guilty of saying "Too little, too late," when I could have been saying "Welcome aboard." Rove, I suspect, will go to his grave never making the kind of admissions you've made on this utterly serious, utterly tragic matter.
But in my second post I was responding more to Simon and dbkenner than to you. The two of them had accused me of humorlessness, of all things, the only charge of theirs that got under my skin. Hence the easy target of Ann Coulter, hence the "don't try to hunt this bear with your popgun" rhetoric. Let me say that your latest post on the psychodynamics of the global warming debate is thoughtful, nuanced, fair-minded. I also hope Al is wrong, but fear he isn't. You have a lively site here. That's why I'm hanging around, hoping to learn as well as to teach. I try to deal in ideas, even when "your" people come after me. Finally, nothing I've said has been really personal regarding you. I'm speaking about anyone who was all for the war before he was against it. When Rove cooked up the idea in South Carolina to save Bush the nomination that McCain was crazy from his years in Vietnam as a POW, and that he now had a black baby--that's personal. And that's the Rove I remembered as you were praising his sideburns, however ironically. Good luck with the bees, and with the next book.

It's always nice to go back and see why Dan Rather was the William Shatner of network news...