WP, Achenblog: DeLay, Bush, O.J., and Michiko Kakutani

[DeepModem Mom]

Washington Post, Achenblog, by Joel Achenbach
Brass Knuckle Politics and Lit Crit

We know that politics is a brass knuckle sport. It favors the rise of people with nicknames like The Hammer. I assume everyone saw the remarkable Peter Perl piece in Outlook, "Delay's Next Mission From God," demonstrating that Tom Delay is hardly finished with his crusade to make America a "God-centered nation." (Perl: "DeLay's America would acknowledge that the Constitution was inspired by the Bible; it would promote prayer and worship, and would stop gun control, outlaw abortion, limit the rights of gays, curb contraception, end the constitutional separation of church and state, and adopt the Ten Commandments as guiding principles for public schools." Delay: "People hate the messenger. That's why they killed Christ.")

The Plame case is another example of kick-in-the-teeth politics. Joe Wilson attacked the White House and the White House hit him hard with everything they had, and with some stuff they just pretended to have. Gellman and Linzer (on page-one of the Washington Post) have described (and have, at last count, 169 Technorati links to demonstrate the importance of their story) how "multiple people in the White House," including Cheney and Libby, sought to discredit Joe Wilson with "evidence" that had been revealed as a hoax months earlier. Today we have E.J. Dionne framing the conversation on the Bush leak, quoting the president's 2003 remark, "I don't know of anybody in my administration who leaked classified information."

IT DOES APPEAR AT THIS POINT THAT THE PRESIDENT SEARCHED FOR THE LEAKER IN HIS ADMINISTRATION WITH THE SAME FERVOR THAT O.J. SEARCHED FOR THE REAL KILLERS. (NOTE FROM MOM: You'll recall that John Kerry observed that Bush has apparently been looking for himself for two years.)

Politics may be brutal, but nothing is as harrowing as a brawl in the world of literary criticism. Check out Ben Yagoda's take-down of (New York Times book critic) Michiko Kakutani in Slate and you may feel like you did when you left the theater after seeing "Pulp Fiction." Great dialogue, but kind of violent, no?...

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/achenblog/