Rabe Ramblings: Around the Horn

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Bill Clinton's fevered rant against Chris Wallace the other day is the talk of the web. His former political advisor Dick Morris, who knows him better than most, writes a fascinating column today on the incident. As usual, you can tell Clinton is lying because his lips are moving:
From behind the benign face and the tranquilizing smile, the real Bill Clinton emerged Sunday during Chris Wallace’s interview on Fox News Channel. There he was on live television, the man those who have worked for him have come to know – the angry, sarcastic, snarling, self-righteous, bombastic bully, roused to a fever pitch. The truer the accusation, the greater the feigned indignation.

Philosopher Edward Feser has a thought-provoking take on why conpiracy theories persist:
A clue to the real attraction of conspiracy theories, I would suggest, lies in the rhetoric of theorists themselves, which is filled with self-congratulatory descriptions of those who accept such theories as "willing to think," "educated," "independent-minded," and so forth, and with invective against the "uninformed" and "unthinking" "sheeple" who "blindly follow authority." The world of the conspiracy theorist is Manichean: either you are intelligent, well-informed, and honest, and therefore question all authority and received opinion; or you accept what popular opinion or an authority says and therefore must be stupid, dishonest, and ignorant. There is no third option.
It's not harmless, and it's not neutral. Chronic conspiracy theorizing is a character flaw. It's as simple as that. (Hat tip: Joe Carter)

This may only be of interest to me, but Slate magazine reviews the oddly-vanished career of erstwhile super-director John Hughes and discovers (surprise!) that he was a Republican.

Christianity Today has finally published online it's excellent story about the resurgence of Reformed theology. The piece springs off of a conference I was fortunate enough to attend back in April.

Rabe Ramblings