1 Boring Old Man

Václav Havel’s "The Trial"

… the thought of a bunch of people launching "a play" that they thought they controlled, but one that ended up entangling them in totally unexpected ways. I see Libby, refusing to flip on Cheney, going through the "embarrassing spectacle" to the end. And David Addington, totally honest in his unfiltered babble of data, exposing the Unitary Executive for the farce it is.

…

Now I’m not saying this trial is definitely going to be the beginning of the end for the evil direction our country is headed in. Only time will tell whether this trial acquires more significance, finally, than Anna Nicole Smith’s death.

But sometimes trials like this can be a beginning–the start of something important. I, for one, will think of this trial as a beginning, not an end in itself.

Marrcy’s post comes from her Ph.D. thesis about feuilletons – short newspaper essays that have historically been a powerful tool in bringing about change. The analogy to political blogs couldn’t be more appropriate.

I’d never try to out-philosophize Marcy Wheeler. She’s the gold standard. But I’ve been having similar thoughts. I recalled the well worn lines from several of T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets:

from Little Gidding:

What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make and end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from.

and the more familiar:

from Burnt Norton:

Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.

It’s been a long journey from July 6^th, 2003 to March 6^th, 2007 – from the time of the first solid sighting of the dark cloud over the Presidency, to the first official action to validate it. The pundits on Fox News, and Bill O’Reilly, and Rush Limbaugh, and the Wall Street Journal, and even the editorial page of the Washington Post are still screaming that the clouds aren’t there, just like they’ve done for most of this almost four year storm. But it’s different now. It’s a palpable difference, finally.

I agree with Marcy. We’ve made it to the beginning.

from the most familiar:

from Little Gidding:

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.