e2c781f8   
   XPost: alt.society.liberalism, can.politics, talk.politics.guns   
   From: David@block.net   
      
   On 6/1/2013 10:42 AM, Kurt Nicklas wrote:   
   > Why This Scandal Is Different   
   >   
   > Peggy Noonan   
   >   
   > Sometimes when you’re writing part of a column you keep getting close   
   > to the meaning of what you want to say but you don’t quite get there,   
   > the full formulation of the idea eludes you. Then two days later,   
   > relaxing in conversation with friends, the thought comes to you whole,   
   > and you think: That’s what I meant to say. That’s what I was trying to   
   > get.   
   >   
   > This week I had one of those moments. I kept trying, the paragraph   
   > kept not quite working, the deadline came.   
   >   
   > I got an email last night that had the effect of a clarifying   
   > conversation. It was from a smart friend who works in government. He   
   > understood the point I was trying to make about how the current IRS   
   > scandal is different from previous ones and more threatening to the   
   > American arrangement. I had written that this scandal isn’t a discrete   
   > event in which a president picks up a phone and tells someone in the   
   > White House to look into the finances of some steel industry   
   > executives, or to check out the returns of some guy on an enemies   
   > list.   
   >   
   > But my friend got to the essence. He wrote, “The left likes to say,   
   > ‘Watergate was worse!’ Watergate was bad—don’t get me wrong. But it   
   > was elites using the machinery of government to spy on elites. . . .   
   > It’s something quite different when elites use the machinery of   
   > government against ordinary people. It’s a whole different ball game.”   
      
   Ordinary people?  What ordinary people are we talking about?   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)