The unforgiving minute: “. . . but I play one on TV.”

Regarding the possibility (at the moment, the far-too-remote possibility) of popular backlash against the increased level of warrentless surveillance directed upon Americans, or anyone else who gets sucked up in the Great National Security Hoover, no less an authority on liberty, common defense, and domestic tranquility than Karl Rove recently spoke up with some impatience:

You cannot turn on a cop drama on television where there is not somebody who’s pinging somebody’s cell phone or taking a look at the phone calls made from some landline or telephone booth to help solve some crime on television.

Now, I know what you're going to say: Those examples are ridiculous. They prove nothing. Jack Bauer and Chloe O'Brien weren't really government counterterrorism agents. Abby Sciuto and Tim McGee aren't really forensics specialists with mad hacker skillz working for NCIS.

Fair enough.

But on the other hand, Rove worked as chief of staff for a man who wasn't really elected President of the United States, and no one seems to care much about that niggling detail anymore.

So cut my man Karl some slack. He's been there.

Minute's up.