Scooter and me

[DoYouEverWonder]

By NICK BROMELL, The American Scholar
Published January 21, 2007

I went away to boarding schools in the early 1960s, and at one of these my best friend was a boy named Scooter - Lewis "Scooter" Libby - who grew up to become Dick Cheney's chief of staff, and one of the Bush administration's strongest advocates for the war in Iraq.

<snip>

We met in a dorm of cubicles - cubies - on our first night at Eaglebrook, in September 1961. Scooter was in the cubie next to mine, and because the walls stopped a foot short of the ceiling, we could easily talk to each other after lights out. The heart of our chatter was fear and loneliness. We were 11 years old. We were away from home.

We were going to sleep in this dorm for the next nine months, and neither of us would ever live with his parents again. Lying there in the dark, we sent threads of feeling up over the wall that separated our cubies. We became friends. Entering what we already sensed would be a cruelly competitive environment, we became allies.

<snip>

In my own experience, this pernicious trend resolves itself finally into the matter of whether I should remain Scooter's friend and what verdict I should hope for at his trial. There's a part of me that wants to see him get nailed.

But there's another part of me that doesn't want to consign him to the camp of "the enemy," that wants to keep lines of communication open. The dialogue between these selves has become a Mobius strip of intertwining questions: Would remaining Scooter's friend be the surest way I have of remaining true to the principles of liberalism? Or would it just be an excuse for my failure to face a difficult situation, and one that makes me a sucker as well? Would recognizing Scooter as my enemy be the honest thing to do, and the only thing he would truly respect? Or would that decision turn me into the very thing I worry he has become? These private questions are much like those in our political conversations today.

http://www.sptimes.com/2007/01/21/Opinion/Scooter_and_me.shtml

[annabanana]

1. Very interesting article.

Excellent limning of the fundamentalist vs liberal mindset.. and the dangers inherent in the former.

[JohnnyLib2]

2. What a profound and thoughtful piece.

Sadly, the RW talkers would label this man as a "pointy headed intellectual" and dismiss him. How deep is the divide at this point in our history......