Impossible!

The White House announced today that Karl Rove is resigning and going back to Texas to spend more time with his family and probably write a book. Seriously. This is comparable to President Bush saying that he made a huge mistake in going into Iraq, and announcing an immediate pullout that would have all our troops home for Christmas. And now, as the pundits weigh in, we are hearing that the Rove resignation is a signal that the dreams of a permanent Republican majority are shattered, all is lost, Bush's agenda is a failure, etc., etc., etc.

Look. That's just crap, OK? Karl may formally resign his post in the White House, but he is definitely not going back to Texas to spend time with his family and write a book. He will be up to his creased, greasy little neck in political skullduggery on a grand scale. Working for his still unrealized dream, his "permanent Republican majority," as defined by Karl Rove.

My guess is he may write off the 2008 presidential campaign except for some light consulting and some paid speaking engagements to fire up the RNC's fundraising abilities. But no heavy lifting. There's a lot of money still to be made out here in the land of international consulting, and Karl is on the "cutting edge" so to speak, nicely positioned to do very well!

After all, he's already performed the impossible: At the very same time he trivialized the Presidency, he greatly expanded the powers of the Executive Branch. (He also thoroughly gutted and debased his own political party, but that's another column.) At some point in the not too distant future, I can see him sequestered with his charts, and his numbers, and his good old precinct by precinct analyses of the relevant states. Maybe he'll spend his time developing a strategy, and tinkering with his tactics (Karl's ALL about tactics.), and rebuilding, so the Republicans, as he has redefined them, can take Congress back in 2010.

You really don't need to be a genius to figure Karl Rove out. He isn't masterful. He's base. At heart, he is just a vicious, mean-spirited, nasty little man. He doesn't think big. He is a consummate cynic. He thinks small. His entire toxic strategy is based on distorting information to deliberately keep people in the dark, which, in a democracy should be a capital crime, and playing to people's fears. The reason he's been so amazingly effective, is because too many people abdicated their own responsibility, and surrendered their autonomy to him. He did what he did, because we let him.

Karl Rove callously redefined the concept of corruption in a democratic system of government in scope and on a scale we never dreamed possible. It would be easy to write that all off as part of some huge conspiracy. The collusion by the corporate conglomerates that run our news media. Wall Street. Halliburton. Enron. The oil guys. The drug companies. Lobbyists. But the fact is, both parties in Congress were supposed to be our firewall. Instead, the concept of checks and balances was alien to them.They should have been there for us, but they hung us out to dry. They just caved in. And so did too many of us.

It is both absolutely correct, and a gross over simplification to hang this eight year disaster solely around the necks of Rove, Bush, Rumsfeld and Cheney. We all own a piece of it. One thing is sure. We've had eight hellish years to really experience Karl's political vision of America. If he stages a comeback, we have only ourselves to blame. The pundits can speculate about what this so called announced resignation means for days. But one thing we should all be able to agree on, is that this so-called resignation doesn't mean anything at all.

Copyright, 2007

A Musing I

An audit released last week from the General Accounting Office, reports that the Defense Department lost 110,000 AK 47 rifles, 80,000 pistols, and 135,000 pieces of body armor, that were given to Iraqi soldiers to help them defend themselves against insurgents. General Petraeus has admitted that no records were kept of who got them. He speculated that it could be a clerical error. Yeah. It could be. Except that they are physically missing...not missing "on paper..." Ever the optimist, the general observed that, "Just because we don't know where they are, doesn't mean the enemy has them." Right. Add this loss to 300,000 barrels a day of Iraqi crude oil missing over the last four years, according to news reports. ..and 12 billion American tax dollars...also missing in Iraq...oh. And 380 tons of explosives.

(This information was originally presented in a neat package by Jon Stewart in a segment of The Daily Show on August 8th. I felt it bore repeating. I'd also seen coverage of the missing weapons on various news broadcasts, among, but not limited to, CNN and ABC News. TDS puts it in context...)

Copyright, 2007

Theatre of the Absurd III: Heads of State

President Bush recently entertained his staunchest ally at Camp David, President Karzai, of Afghanistan, or, as he is popularly known, the Mayor of Kabul. (Kudos to Jon Stewart). With public opinion polls consistently showing his approval ratings in the 23% - 28% range, and criticism of the President's policies mounting, I bet Mr. Bush felt reassured to know Mr. Karzai really appreciates everything the Bush Administration has done in Afghanistan.

Over the past three years, the Afghan opium trade is flourishing again, warlords now control much more of the country, and the Taliban, after four years of being in "remission," is now resurgent. In fact, with the recent phenomenon of suicide bombings added to their repertoire, Afghanistan is beginning to look a little bit more like Iraq every day. And conversely, with less than one third of Iraqis now having access to clean water and electricity, Iraq is beginning to look more and more like Afghanistan. If Iraq's situation gets anymore desperate, they may even decide to accept workers from Iran to help them rebuild their villages, as Mr. Karzai has done recently in Afghanistan!

According to BBC news, Oxfam, a respected international charity, is claiming that:
"... currently, 70% of all Iraqis don't have access to adequate water supplies, and less than 20% have access to effective sanitation." This, after more than five years of direct, hands on, American support for both countries. (We recently learned that Iraq's main power grid is on the verge of total collapse. A spokesman for the Electricity Ministry said Iraq is only meeting half of the demand for electricity as it is, and there have been four nationwide blackouts in a one week period in the last month.)

Usually, when heads of state visit President Bush, our guy likes to show off a little bit. It's the Texan in him. So there was the usual news conference, which President Bush often dominates, while his guests sit with a bemused grin plastered on their faces. It's usually at this moment, that Mr Bush offers profound observations on the state of things, in an attempt to demonstrate that he always reads all of his daily briefings, and knows who's who and what's what. Karzai's visit was no exception. You see, with our Presidential Campaign heating up, Senator Barack Obama drew major international attention in the past week or so, by saying he'd go into Pakistan, which borders Afghanistan, using military force to bring our Al Qaeda enemies to their knees. Barack to Pakistan: " If you won't do it, we will." This caused quite a mess in diplomatic circles in both Pakistan and Afghanistan. There is a mountainous border region they share, where our enemies come and go at will. Neither governments' forces are willing to root out these terrorist camps. Pakistan claims the region is totally ungovernable.

The average American can understand Barack Obama's frustration. After all, these are the same terrorists who killed 3,000 people in New York City. By flying planes into buildings. And their ring leader and mastermind, the heart and soul of this terrorist movement, is still alive and functioning more than six years after he orchestrated the bloodiest attack we've ever suffered on our own soil.

In fact, the reason why brave young men like Pat Tillman enlisted in the military, was to fight in Afghanistan, against the people who attacked us. In an attempt to put Senator Obama and a growing chorus of critics in their place, and to remind his dear friend, President Karzai, just who is in charge of US foreign policy, Mr. Bush finally explained to the the Afghan head of state, the American people, and the rest of the world, the reason why Osama and his minions have been immune to all efforts to capture him. He said, "We could catch him tomorrow...if we knew where he was. We'd catch him, if we had good, actionable intelligence...better intelligence." His words, not mine. How tragically simple.

Well, of course we would, Mr. President. Except, didn't we have him pinned down somewhere outside Kandahar in the late fall of 2001? And he just evaporated like a puff of smoke and escaped? Well, today, Mr. Bush explained that, too. You see, there was no kill order six years ago! The military had to sort of call a time out to try to find someone in Washington who was up high enough to give permission to take Osama out. But today, all that was straightened out once and for all. Today, the military was told, you no longer have to ask. Just do it. If the situation is such that you need to take the shot, take the shot. Which is, basically, what a very frustrated Barack Obama intends to do.

Copyright, August, 2007