I was lurking over at the hillary clinton forum where this video is also posted. Some of the woman there had had a run in with this same Fowler at the convention, he had apparently tried to strongarm them into putting up a front of party unity. Needless to say, they had a low opinion of this sucker even before they saw the video.

Hi -

This is the key to your post:

After all, once we all learn that everything private can easily be made public why would anyone dare to speak their mind?

Why indeed?

Because then only those who have the courage of their commitments and who are indeed honest and say what they mean will be the only ones worth listening to.

Now *that's* a revolutionary idea. All the lying bastards - i.e. 99.9% of all politicians - will be pointed out for the hypocrites and parasites that they are.

Could be the best thing that would ever happen to politics. This is what journalists *should* be doing, rather than prostituting themselves in the interest of a deeply flawed policy that belongs, at best, on the garbage heap of history ("democratic socialism" of the Democratic Party).

The idea of actually meaning what you say, instead of saying what the pollsters tell you you should be saying would, of course, spell the ruin for literally thousands of pollsters and pundits.

Good riddance.

He obviously didn't get the memo that speech was given to liberals to help conceal their thoughts. This is one of the reasons people are reacting so strongly to Sarah Palin. It is completely refreshing to see and hear a politician who is truly authentic, meaning that there is no breach between being, thought, action, and language. In contrast, Obama is a deeply divided human being. He's not "complex," he's quite fundamentally confused.

In that regard, she really appears to be similar to Reagan. A politician who is not only likable, but lovable, is such a rare commodity, that it will have extremely unpredictable consequences that outweigh all the vapid political talk about "experience." As with Reagan, his handlers didn't care what his critics said, so long as they showed the images, because the images convey a deeper truth. Conversely, when you see Joe Biden, you can't help imagining the aggressively grinning closer at your local Pontiac dealership.

"Should I do it? Should I pass it on?"

Exposing self-righteous Pharisees hell bent on ransacking the Constitution and cursing their fellow countrymen is always the right, good thing to do!

Gerard, incidents such as this are precisely why I believe there is a God and that He has a sense of humor.

In New Orleans, they would call this a "lagniappe", or "a little something extra".

We thought they were sphincters. Now we *KNOW* they are sphincters.

My friend, I'm going to have to agree with Tanis on this one.

It's not a question of who's being caught on tape today vs. who'll be caught tomorrow. It's a question of who's the person being snickered about, by the person being caught on tape today -- versus who'll be made a fool of tomorrow. People like Fowler are looking people like that, for whom they have so little regard, dead in the eye, and telling 'em sweet little lies with a straight face. Regularly.

You speak of a Brave New World in which privacy has been diminished, but your example is privacy cherished by people who seek to change the lives of millions of others, whom they'll never meet, in a single day. With apologies to Moulitsas, *screw them*. It may not be a public job Fowler has, but it certainly isn't a private one. And this deplorable "whistle-stop" practice of saying one thing in Bismarck and a different thing entirely in Atlantic City, is given a good shove toward history's dustbin in your Brave New World. That's an exchange I'm willing to make.

It boils down to something I (as well as my employer as a matter of corporate policy) believe:

Character is what you do when (you think) nobody's looking (or listening, in this case.)

" That's an exchange I'm willing to make."

Did I say I wasn't willing to make it too. Re-read.

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Should I do it? Should I pass it on? After all, everybody else does. They do it. Worse that we do. Don't they?

At this point, the obvious answer is that "just because they do it doesn't mean I should." But that too is the easy answer, the false pose. The blunt fact I know is that I will do it when I can and when it seems right to do it. Those that swear off something in an absolute sense always strike me as suspect. There just isn't that much saintliness in today's world.

Nope. I'm going to continue to use the tools of our Brave New World like dowsing rods on today's political landscape waiting for that twitch, that little cheap frisson, that tells me I've detected "truth" as I like to find it.
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Thanks for the post. As always, spot on!

Thanks for the post. As always, spot on!

"Every morning for the past two weeks, California pastor Wiley Drake, a Southern Baptist, has invited Christians from around the country to join him on a two-hour conference call to pray for rain Thursday evening [at Obama's outdoor acceptance speech]. Mr. Drake deems Sen. Obama's support for abortion rights immoral. "We need some special intervention from God," Mr. Drake said."

(Wall St. Journal, 8/25/08)

Did I say I wasn't willing to make it too. Re-read. At this point, the obvious answer is that "just because they do it doesn't mean I should." But that too is the easy answer, the false pose. The blunt fact I know is that I will do it when I can and when it seems right to do it. Those that swear off something in an absolute sense always strike me as suspect. There just isn't that much saintliness in today's world. " That's an exchange I'm willing to make."