This kind of thing (via Drudge) makes me so sick of blogging that I could scream.

Here's Clinton, February 9, 1995:

"The Attorney General is authorized to approve physical searches, without a court order"

"Attorney General is authorized to approve electronic surveillance to acquire foreign intelligence information without a court order."

It's a bunch of hyperpoliticized nonsense by sanctimonious poseurs, and what I'm mad about is that there seems to be some duty incumbent upon me as a blogger to address it. (Yeah, I touched on it earlier. And a big "so what" to that!)

Whether it's the latest NSA "scandal," or the previous Wilson Plame out-my-wife tempest in a teapot, there's nothing new about spooks using their skills and power to subvert presidents they don't like. They are perfectly positioned to do it, and ever since Watergate (where things converged), there's been an alliance between spooks in the bureaucracy and conniving journalists (who do each other's bidding in a very unholy, totally denied alliance). This machine (for lack of a better word) has been in a position of great strength ever since the overthrow of Nixon. It's able to manipulate public opinion quite easily, for memories are short, and American people are very trusting, and easily shocked. I'm not shocked by any of this stuff.

What I don't like is this feeling that the spooks and their MSM allies are setting the agenda.

Hence my distaste for the idea that I'm even supposed to pay attention to it. I started this blog because I wanted to discuss ideas and write about things I wanted to write about, and it gives me the creeps when "huge national scandals" are created out of whole cloth, and if you don't address them as a blogger, why, it's as if you're not living up to someone's idea of "responsibilities."

It's precisely what I hated litigation. It's a reactive process, driven by your mandatory response someone to else's bullshit. (Or, if you get aggressive, their response to yours.)

Now, my rational side knows that I don't "have to" address this latest spookfest scandal. But it's the sense of obligation (blogligation), a creeping sense of nagging responsibility to respond to an agenda dictated by people whose great unearned power I distrust and detest, that makes me very angry.

Can I "prove" that there's a conspiracy of spooks and journalists? Of course not. I don't have a security clearance, nor access to information, and so all I can offer is speculation based on what I've seen over the years.

But it's nothing new. For me, it's old and tired, and exhausting in the extreme.

What's new is a feeling I can't shake that the blogosphere has been drafted into service -- along the lines of "Here's the latest scandal, so you better hop to it right now or else you're not doing your job as a blogger!"

I know this is just an irrational feeling, but it's as if I'm being given marching orders by an old enemy I've long detested. I resent the fact that these people have so much power, and I wish they could be summarily ignored.

I'd like to say "I told you so!" but that's just another big so-what. (I might as well have tried to warn people about the existence of evil in the world.) Still, there's something degrading about having to pretend to be shocked and outraged.

(Sorry I haven't jumped through all the necessary hoops.)

MORE: As luck would have it, just I'm about to publish this depressing post, I find yet another scandal deflator:

....the Internet is full of armchair constitutional scholars right now who're fighting tooth and nail over these questions, generating much heat but very little light. Instead, I'd like to point your attention to some later developments in this case that clearly indicate that there's much more going on here than we initially assumed. When the truth comes out (if it ever does), this NSA wiretapping story will almost certainly be a story not just about the Constitutional concept of the separation of powers, but about high technology.

Hmmmm....

Despite my gloomy outlook, I'll end on a note of optimism. The blogosphere is clearly shortcircuiting the hoop jumping process.

More bloggers mean fewer hoops! That's good.