Mark: I have no idea what Karl Rove said yesterday, but I do think that you need to do better than reference an unnamed source before you start throwing around words such as “obscene” and suggest that we’re now on the path to a “master-servant society” or Saudi tyranny or whatever. A fuller quote, in context, might be helpful, too. More important, though, is the fact that your own statement actually undercuts your argument: Nobody aspires to have their children spend a lifetime performing manual labor. This is very possibly the precise point that Rove meant to communicate. To say it is in no way to demean the virtue of hard work, and I think it’s a pretty big jump to suggest that this is what Rove was doing, especially without better evidence.