Costco

rapacity -- n -- reprehensible acquisitiveness

One reason why it's my favorite store...

A thousand copies of "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" for $15.74

And one reason why I hate shopping there...

Some ethereal force compelled me to also purchase "Meet You in Hell: Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and the Bitter Partnership That Transformed America" for $14.99.

What about Charlie Batch?

Catch him if you can ...

I'm not sure who I find more pathetic here...

Ladies, for future reference, here's a tip... if you aren't famous or wealthy, then he probably isn't either.

Perception

Choosing our facts . . .

speculatist -- n -- a theorist

I want to believe that JFK stole the 1960 election from Richard Nixon through nefarious means -- and there is evidence to suggest that both Illinois and Texas were the states in which an election was stolen (as compared to possibly lost incompetently in Florida in 2000, where a Democratic-controlled election board in certain counties approved the butterfly ballot that befuddled voters).

I wanted to believe that the Clintons acted improperly in the Whitewater matter and the Travel Gate incident. And there is some evidence that they did.

I want to believe that Ronald Reagan was not aware of the selling of arms to Iran in an effort to persuade a terrorist state to use its influence to gain the release of Americans held hostage by radicals in Lebanon. I also want to believe that he was not aware that proceeds from the sale of arms to Iran were being used to fund the contras in Nicaragua. It seems that the greater weight of the evidence pointed to the fact that Reagan was not aware of what Lt. Col. Oliver North and others were up to. I could also make a persuasive argument that the Boland Amendment that made the funding of the contras illegal was an unconstitutional usurpation of executive powers by the legislative branch.

If it was Clinton and not Reagan, I must reluctantly admit that I would not be so inclined to believe that he was unaware and would instead focus on the facts that indicate that he had to be aware. And I would have argued then, as I would now about the matter -- even though it is Reagan, that a chief executive bears responsibility for the actions of his subordinates. It may be true that he didn't know, but a President acts with gross negligence in allowing underlings to sell weapons and illegally fund a resistance faction. While I would have acknowledged (since I am still a person of principle) that the Boland Amendment is an unconstitutional usurpation of executive powers, I would have correctly emphasized that it was a violation of the law. The proper course of action would have been to challenge the Boland Amendment and not to contravene the law.

As I read Ron Chernow's masterfully-written work on our greatest founder, Alexander Hamilton, I am struck by the fact that 1787 was no different than 1987 nor any different than today. We invariably, no matter how hard we may try not to, view the world through our own prism.

This doesn't make us hypocrites ... as a hypocrite is someone who applies different principles to the same set of facts... or perhaps it does, but in a way with which I'm comfortable... but it explains why rational and fair-minded people can see a set of facts so differently.

And while I'm willing to accept that and find that this is what makes for great argument, I also find that the more immediate the event the more passion and partiality seep into my arguments, making for a less-inspired discourse. For me, time acts as both a cooling and leveling force.

I mention this because I have found myself instinctively tempted to point out the "facts" (that is, those items that support my instinctive position) in discussions with more Democratic-minded co-workers regarding the latest D.C. imbroglio in which Karl Rove finds himself ensnared. Karl Rove is like Barbra Streisand (without the backlighting or the self-indulgent web site ... yet) in that it is difficult to find people who don't have a strong opinion about the person one way or the other (and sane people think you are nuts if you don't). To the anti-Bush (as I believe there were actually only 5 people who were pro-Kerry in the last election, which topped by 2 the number of people who were pro-Dole in the '96 Presidential campaign) camp, Karl Rove is Satan. Pro-Bush "folks" (not to be confused with those folks who are flying planes into the Twin Towers and killing thousands of Americans) simply add a v, rearrange the last few letters and think of Rove as a savant.

If you are an anti-Bush, you see the negative aspects of this mess and focus and highlight those. If you are pro-Bush person and inclined like me, you focus on the "fact" (yes, equivocal statements are now facts... just as rumor and innuendo have become) that there doesn't appear to be a violation of any law ... or at least not the Intelligence Identities Protection Act (the law most often discussed) because a) by all accounts Karl Rove did not disclose (if I were otherwise-minded, I would say "leaked") that Joe Wilson's wife worked for the CIA not with the intent to expose her as opposed to with the intent to destroy the credibility of Joe Wilson (which has, from my impassioned view of the facts, already occurred) and b) Joe Wilson's wife would not be considered a covert agent under that Act because she had not been working abroad (i.e. she had a desk job in the U.S.) for over 5 years before the disclosure.

But here's the one ACTUAL fact that I can't get away from . . . I don't know all of the facts. So while my prism and I are inclined to make a determination here, as I learned (after some time) in the 80's with Iran-Contra, and as Clinton supporters learned thanks to Monica, and as poor Scott McClellan learned in defending Rove unequivocally two years ago, it is better to let my passions cool and my partisanship recede into the recesses of my cold conservative heart... before staking a position.

Instead, I will sit back and enjoy the hypocrisy of principle switching (pre-judging = good if you were a Republican during the Clinton years but it is bad to so now; pre-judging = bad if you were a Democrat during the Clinton years but through the wonders of time, like bell bottoms, is now back in fashion) and reading those who point this out.