Looking over my blogroll I see that everyone has pretty much taken the day off, bloggers and the news sites too.

To show you just how slow things are, I found this story, which actually combines three short articles into one. I have comments on two of them.

The story is headlined, “Rove blasts journalists’ role in politics“, and perhaps he does, but it is a few lines that speak about the American people that caught my attention:

Rove told about 100 graduates trained to be political operatives that they should respect the instincts of the American voter.

“There are some in politics who hold that voters are dumb, ill informed and easily misled, that voters can be manipulated by a clever ad or a smart line,” said Rove, who is credited with President Bush’s victories in the 2000 and 2004 elections. “I’ve seen this cynicism over the years from political professionals and journalists. American people are not policy wonks, but they have great instincts and try to do the right thing.”

Rove said it is “wrong to underestimate the intelligence of the American voter, but easy to overestimate their interest. Much tugs at their attention.“

Not only good advice for graduate students of political management (or even journalists), but for bloggers too.

Bundled with the story about Karl Rove is one about John Kerry (who served in Vietnam, by the way) speaking in Iowa.

“The fact is, the United States of America is less secure today than we were five years ago,” he said. “Less secure because North Korea has four or five times more weapons ….
Iran is running amok, the Middle East — the wheels are coming off, and Iraq is a quagmire.”

Of course none of that would be the case if he were president.

Yeah, right.