Ruthless People

I'm glad I was prepared for the domination of vile and loathsome sociopaths in this week's news. Prepared because I recently read "The Sociopath Next Door." We have the political sociopath extraordinaire, the Governor of Illinois and the sociopathic child killer in Florida. I refuse to type out their names or post photos of either of them. Let's leave that for Keith Olbermann and Nancy Grace.

Some may take this turn of events to be a signal for an impending apocalypse but sociopaths have always been with us. We may have a culture that is more 'sociopath' friendly than it used to be, but still, there's nothing new here.

I liked this comment by Jonah Goldberg of all people, about reaction to the Rod Blagojevich scandal:

For the last several years, we've heard a lot about "new politics." We are going to start fresh and put aside the old politics and the old ways. So far, it looks like Obama did nothing wrong, and I hope that remains the case. But it's worth remembering that there really isn't any such thing as a "new politics." Politics is eternal because human nature is unchanging. Even Barack Obama, hero-saint light-worker Jedi Knight Messiah that he is, came from a political culture that would not be unrecognizable to Caligula.