At a certain point, we become either like the frog sitting in the water over the flame, oblivious to (or simply ignoring) the gradual rise in water temperature, or we have to say "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!"

No one with any kind of mass audience is better at the latter than Keith Olbermann. If you didn't see his take on this last night, well, here it is: both on video and as a transcript. He calls for Bush and Cheney to resign. Check it out.

David:

The problem is: Who is "we"? There are plenty of people out there who just plain disagree, who see this as business as usual (and can point to Bill Clinton pardoning, inter alia, an egregious tax evader and international prosecution flight). How do you propose to move them from disagreeing with you to not just agreeing with you on the state of things but also to agreeing with you on what should be done?

TK's got a point, up to a point. We could also discuss the sentencing of Sandy Berger, or lack thereof, for what would seem to be a much clearer breach of security laws (not to mention basic ethics). And of course the ethics of Mr. Plame's kiss-and-tell misrepresentation of his excellent trip to Africa in the pages of the New York Times kind of begs the question of what it means to faithfully serve your employer, let alone your government.

In an era when "conservatives" have to be perfect, while the opposition just has to be righteous, those of us in the middle with something like a sense of fairness and honor have a tendency to throw our diusgust in the direction of the modern puritans.

Because they've earned it.

Now, now, Mr. Poling. I’m not sure whether I disagree more with your claim that conservatives have to be perfect or your description of the timeframe as an era. For nigh on 7 years now, the GOP in DC has been able to do pretty much as it pleased. I’m more apt to see the current goings-on as merely the chickens coming home to roost.

That is, and I think you’ll agree, Lord Acton was right that “Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.” While most Americans (and I count myself in that category) would say that pardoning or commuting sentences of properly convicted criminals is not right, in the practical world it’s just a matter of whose ox is being gored.

I find Bush’s actions in the Libby case to be both low and cynical, but it doesn’t bother me as much as his putting politics first in every aspect of his government, from making a political operative a key policy maker to permitting his justice department to axe employees for their political beliefs. And the fact that the excess is in the aggregate is part of the difficulty of convincing those who disagree. You can’t just pull a trump out of a hat; you have to engage for a long time, which requires the other side to engage as well. Which isn’t happening (on either side, pace Mark) right now.

TK:

I suggest that you watch the Olbermann piece before you comment. You will find that you agree with him, or visa versa.

This is NOT about Libby. This is about, as you state, that "[f]or nigh on 7 years now, the GOP in DC has been able to do pretty much as it pleased."

You state, "I find Bush’s actions in the Libby case to be both low and cynical, but it doesn’t bother me as much as his putting politics first in every aspect of his government, from making a political operative a key policy maker to permitting his justice department to axe employees for their political beliefs."

I agree with you. And that's why I make the analogy to the frog in the pot of water. It's not just this "low and cynical" move. It's a cumulative body of work. Each one is "low and cynical." Seen as a whole, what does it take before "we" say "Enough is enough!"?

That's pretty much what Olbermann said, but he said it in much stronger terms.

You ask: "How do you propose to move them from disagreeing with you to not just agreeing with you on the state of things but also to agreeing with you on what should be done?"

Tony Robbins says often that "If the 'why' is important enough, the 'how' will become evident." You seem to be asking a question of strategy. Leverage comes before strategy. First "we" have to convince enough people that the "why" is important enough. It's starts with one person, or a small group of people, saying "Enough is enough!" or "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!"

Olbermann is the one person who is saying so who has any kind of a mass audience.

Watch the piece, if you haven't already. I really think that you will appreciate it. The visual add to it. The transcript does not do it justice.

David:

I don't appreciate Keith Olbermann's style. AFAIC, he's just like the fulminators on the Right. I do tend to agree with him (or at least when I hear people reference things he says I do), but I don't like to spend my spare cycles watching.

Leverage is strategy. To be overly metaphoric about it, there are multiple kinds of levers: fulcrum in the middle, fulcrum on an end, load in the middle, etc. Choices of how to establish and operate leverage are choices of strategy. The way to get apathetic people to care is not to tell them how much you care, it's to figure out what they do, will, or would care about. Lots of people have been saying “Enough is enough” for a long time, and yet . . .

TK,

It's still worth seeing, or at least reading the transcript if you don't want to see his oration.

At the risk of being very technical, in the "Personal Growth/Change" vocabulary, there is a big difference between "Leverage" and "Strategy."

"Leverage" is the realization that if change doesn't occur, what will happen/is happening is so painful that change MUST happen NOW. Or, conversely, that if change does happen, it will be so wonderful that change MUST happen NOW. For whatever reason, pain is usually a bigger motivator than potential pleasure. Either way, that is when someone hits what is called "threshhold."

The leverage in this case is the "why." Once threshhold occurs, the "how" usually becomes very evident.

Getting people to threshhold, however, as you suggest, does involve strategy. One way, in this case, is for enough other people to jump out of the cauldron "hopping mad" so that some sort of critical mass is acheived.

This cannot be an intellectual activity. This requires emotion -- perhaps the same emotion that Olbermann exudes, that may be (ironically) the aspect of his style that you don't appreciate. But it is an emotional activity, not an intellectual activity -- unless the intellectual activity gets you mad enough that you won't take it anymore. :-)

I disagree pretty strongly that politics is an emotional activity. It may not be wholly intellectual, but I hope describing it as an emotional activity is quite wrong. High emotions lead to what we have now, from where I stand. The other side is evil, not just wrong. Every action with which our side disagrees is putting the country on the road to ruin. The other side is conspiring to destroy the lives of the majority for the profit or other gain of a fringe minority.

Don't get me wrong, I'm aware of the fallacy of extremes and I'm pretty sure there are always those who will exploit mild-manneredness of the opposition cynically. (I'm also aware that I've called for the Left to get some goons to match those on the Right.) However, there's enough that's gone on in this administration to demonstrate that they and their allies shouldn't be in charge any more without getting into a lather over something that's basically business as usual under all presidents. To me that's a bit like the regular high dudgeon calls to reduce pork spending. See above about oxen and goring.

TK,

I understand your point about oxen and goring. That point takes the Libby situation and removes it from the context in which it occurs. I'm addressing the cumulative effect, as you state, of "Every action which ... is putting the country on the road to ruin."

I think we are beginning to start talking past each other. I didn't say that politics is an emotional activity. What I said is that it requires emotion. There is a difference. Unless one feels truly passionate about creating change, the change will not occur.

Let me put it to you differently: A lot of people know what to do, intellectually, but they do not do what they know. This is because they are thinking in their heads, not acting from their hearts. For example, the difference between anger and cynicism is that anger spurs one into action, while cynicism allows one to shrug one's shoulders, shake one's head, and continue with business as usual.

If you have 100 people who understand that things are rotten, and you have a different 100 people who are pissed off that things are rotten, the people who are pissed off will do more to change things than the people who just intellectually understand.

I also know that it is also true that when emotion enters a conversation to a point where your heart rate goes up to a certain threshhold (See Gladwell's Blink), intellect goes out the window. To the extreme, this becomes mob rule, which we both abhor.

That said, we find ourselves right back to where we were in the beginning of this discussion. I stand by what I said before. You asked:

"How do you propose to move them from disagreeing with you to not just agreeing with you on the state of things but also to agreeing with you on what should be done?"

The answer is to get people out of their heads and into their hearts. The answer is to get people to the "threshhold" where they feel (not just "think") that something MUST be done and MUST be done NOW.

Otherwise, we will all end up just a bunch of boiled frogs.

@David (note the new kewl use of thread syntax ^_^):

At the risk of tiring our readers with another barnyard metaphor, I'll say that I think you're putting the cart before the horse. You're starting with people who disagree with you and you're moving them immediately to doing something (strong) with which you would agree.

My question is about the first big step of the process and you're speaking to the last. How do you convince someone who thinks that commuting Libby's sentence was a good idea not just that it wasn't a good idea? How is this commutation different from every other political commutation?

TK,

With all due respect, that's the sort of question that has paralyzed the Democratic Party.

Notice what the Republicans under Cheney and Rove have done. They don't give an expletive about what the people who disagree with them think. When they had the slightest majority -- and even when they didn't -- they bulldozed the opposition. They know what they want and they don't care who disagrees with them. They never attempted to convince those who disagree with them -- ever. They just ignore us, or call us traitors.

Do you think that Bush is trying to convince the rest of us that his choice for new Surgeon General is someone we should approve of? Not hardly. He does not care what we think.

I'm not interested -- at this point in time -- in convincing anyone who disagrees with me. The President has a 29% approval rating. I want to work with the other 71%, and get them loud, vocal, and force the wishy-washy Democrats to find a backbone and follow the rest of us.

The issue is not -- as I've said -- about the commutation. The issue is as you put it, and as I quoted you above: the cumulative effect of this administration's actions. At some point, one of these straws must break the proverbial camel's back. To parse this event out of context does none of us any good.

I don't care how many of the 29% loyally back the President and cite whatever examples of anything in rebuttal. The fact is that 71% of us want regime change right now, and the only question on my table is how to mobilize that 71% into a viable, formidable, political force.

When enough of us are pissed off and demand action, and that enough of us represent a sizable majority, change will have to happen.

... But if you really did want to attempt to convince the other 29% to join with us, you could start, as Keith Olbermann reminds us (see above), about what "James Madison—at the Constitutional Convention—said about impeaching any president who pardoned or sheltered those who had committed crimes “advised by” that president."

The other pardons mentioned are by Presidents on literally their last day of office. This one is unique in that it could well be sheltering someone who had commmited crimes 'advised by' either the President or the Vice-President.

That is a major difference. This one is potentially an impeachable offense, according to Madison.