The Quaint Ann Althouse

by Smitty (h/t Little Miss Attila)

Ann Althouse hammers Maureen Dowd for inability to differentiate between private citizens (Tiger "How 'bout them" Woods) and civil servants and Desiree Rogers, the White House social secretary, or does she?

Woods had a constitutional right not to talk to the police, and I assume he was well advised by lawyers as he chose not to talk. He had a right to do what he thought was best for himself. The public may be interested in him, and he needs to worry about our loss of respect for him, which would hurt his lucrative career in product endorsement, but he doesn't owe us anything.

Rogers, on the other hand was working for the government, in a position of a public trust, and her refusal to account for herself was quite a different matter. The constitutional provision for executive privilege is not like the individual right against self-incrimination. It's a matter of separation of powers having to do with the ability of the executive branch to function independently. If it is invoked, it should not be Rogers protecting her own interests.

Let's set a few things straight, Ann:

• Tiger's dalliance is ignoble and the fascination is symptomatic of a voyeuristic society. Nothing of lasting value will be gained from it, other than distraction from real issues like Warmaquiddick for the perpetrators.
• Privacy is a notional in the Information Age. Some abstract "right to know" (an odd spelling of "money") will trigger illegalcurious behavior on cue. Ask Joe the Plumber.
• The elite, on either side of the aisle, view the Constitution as seriously as the privacy of anyone creating difficulties for their agenda. Ask Senator Max Baucus.
• The propaganda media are dedicated to sowing confusion in the public mind. Hiding the cretinism of a "civil servant" behind a bogus equivalence with a private citizen is just another service the propaganda media excretesprovides.

Then again, the formidable Ann Althouse probably understands all of this too well, and is merely being ironic.

To explain, Professor Althouse

You ask, why didn't Sarah Palin "have a say" in her media strategy? The answer is simple and obvious: It wasn't her campaign and it wasn't her staff.

John McCain and his campaign team called all the shots. When Palin balked at their bad advice, she was accused of "going rogue" and badmouthed by anonymous leakers who were, in many cases, the same staffers responsible for the botched strategy. When Palin complained about being unfairly disparaged in the media, she was then accused of "whining." She was cornered, trapped in a can't-win situation.

What happened to Palin was quite similar to what happened to Barry Goldwater in 1964: Democratic attacks on Goldwater were effective mainly because they were echoed by Goldwater's Republican enemies: "Hey, look, even Republicans say Barry's a dangerous warmongering kook!"

We are still three years away from the 2012 presidential election, and I am disappointed by Professor Althouse's effort to portray Palin as not merely unready for the presidency now, but so irremediably inferior as to be permanently disqualified for high office.

Obviously, statesmanship requires traits more weighty than the sort of personal charisma that generates intense grassroots enthusiasm. Otherwise Barack Obama wouldn't be so far along the path to becoming a 21st-century Jimmy Carter. Yet what other 2012 GOP presidential hopeful has a fraction of the grassroots enthusiasm that Palin would bring to the campaign?

The Republican "Anybody But Palin" Coalition seems willing to discard that grassroots enthusiasm, without which Obama's re-election is a near certainty. (If Mitt Romney couldn't even beat that notorious loser John McCain . . .)

Any Republican who disaparages Palin without suggesting a feasible GOP alternative can therefore be said to be objectively pro-Obama.

Ace of Spades and Conservative for Palin have more comment.