...or is kicking a man when he's down really the only time to do it?

Thoughts at the close of 2008 Volume I:

We would all be delighted to allow George W. Bush to slink off the stage and forever be consigned to the obscurity he so richly deserves. Think Nixon at the helicopter door. Unfortunately, a few remaining Bush apologists who still have access to the media (and who don't have tell-all books headed for publication) are determined to keep Curious George in the papers, if not in the headlines.

Most vocal thus far is Condoleezza Rice. Having been one of the architects of the Bush Doctrine (Don't feel bad, Sarah. I didn't know it had a name either.) Secretary Rice can be forgiven for applying a little grease paint to her foreign policy porker. In several interviews granted last week, she expresses no remorse for the senseless deaths in Iraq. She is confident that history will vindicate both her and her boss. Patriotism may be the last refuge of scoundrels but history is surely the last refuge of bone-headed policy-makers. Secretary Rice has also postulated that, thanks to the efforts of GWB, the Middle East is in much better shape than eight years ago. I suspect the cheering crowds in Jerusalem and Amman are being drowned out by the falling bombs and rockets in Gaza.

The entire eight years of Bush foreign policy can be written in one word: Iraq. History may ultimately see the invasion of a sovereign nation as a bold stroke with glorious results. Sadly, the 4,219 Americans and 50,000 Iraqis killed since 2003 won't be around to read about it.

But Condi is not alone in her praise for the outgoing CIC. Not content to pack up the trailer and return to Texas, Laura Bush has decided to break eight years of silence in defense of her much-maligned hubby. Naturally, the venue of choice was Fox News. Mrs. Bush arrived with the usual wagon-load of excuses as to why her husband is held in the same high regard as O.J. Simpson and Rod Blagojevich. She blames, who else? The media.

It was the news coverage of Katrina that made Clueless George look a buffoon, not the complete ineptitude of FEMA. After all only 1,800 people died in the storm and it's aftermath, not the 10,000 originally reported. It was those liberal reporters and photographers that kept showing all that human suffering rather than focusing on John McCain's birthday party...like the Commander in Chief did. Laura, sweetheart, stop talking! We liked you much better when we thought you were a cardboard cutout.

And last and least is Karl "with enough money and dirty tricks I could get a pound of headcheese elected president...and did" Rove. Thanks to his weekly gig in The Wall Street Journal, Rove continues to justify and excuse the bag of hammers that became Bush 43.

This week Karl was busy praising GWB as an avid reader. According to Rove, George polished off 95 books in 2006 alone. The President's reading list runs mostly to biographies and history. Tragically, a few titles missing from the list include, "Waging War For Dummies", "Chicken Soup For the Families of 4,219 Fallen Americans", and "Everything I Needed To Know To Be President I Learned From Don Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney". I wonder if the list from 2001 included "The Pet Goat".

Rove is the worst kind of apologist. As a modern day Rasputin he stood in the shadows, always careful not to soil his hands. It's unlikely that any subpoena will ever bear his name. Colin Powell will be remembered as the Secretary of State who lied before the entire United Nations. Rumsfeld will be forever blamed for the conduct of the Iraq War. However, none of the Bush failures, and they are legion, will land at the feet of Karl Rove. We can only hope that, without a power base as a threat, Rove's band of trolls will turn on him. There are plenty of publishers out there just itching to print the dirt. The book will be called "If He Did It, The Sequel".

...or am I so short that the fast ones go right over my head?

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In the world of chutzpa there are amateurs and professionals. Larry Craig, the wide-stance senator from Idaho, is a amateur. His decision to keep his seat (that would be his Senate seat, not the one in the Minneapolis men's room) was nervy but hardly noteworthy.

Congressman William Jefferson of Louisiana, on the other hand, is pure professional. You may remember the honorable representative from New Orleans as the legislator who owned a $70,000 Fridge, all in cash. Congressman Jefferson isn't about to let a trifling item like a sixteen count federal corruption indictment interrupt his glittering career as a legislator. Dollar Bill has announced that he will be running for his tenth term as the representative of Louisiana's second district. Considering the likes of Huey Long, David Dukes, David Vetter and Edwin "Fast Eddie" Edwards, it's nice to see that tradition still matters even if it's a tradition of corruption. And you thought all the backed-up sewage in New Orleans had been cleared.


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Ashcroft redux.


A Romanian village re-elected Mayor Neculai Ivascu to a new term in spite of the fact that he died shortly before the election. Villagers expressed a reluctance to change. It is now possible to speculate that Kansas is secretly populated with Romanians.



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Our friends at the Vatican have decided to forbid any filming for the prequel to the Di Vinci Code on any Church property in Rome. Apparently the mere mention of Dan Brown is enough to send the Holy See running for their rosary beads. The RCC clearly doesn't appreciate Brown's rather novel interpretation of Church doctrine. I'll bet those spoil-sports would have blocked "The Bells of Saint Mary" and don't even get them started about "Angels in the Outfield".




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And on the subject of religion, Hindus are concerned that Mike Meyers' new movie "The Love Guru" demeans their culture. They must hate Apu on the Simpsons. Fear not, gentle people. This film is so bad even the detainees at Guantanamo won't watch it and they like to laugh at Hindus.




Thankfully, unlike Muslims, Hindus do not feel the need to execute everyone associated with the production of films that offend them. There has, however, been a fatwa posted against Mike Meyers by the producers of Pluto Nash who are upset at losing their bragging rights to the title "worst movie ever made".



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The Republican Party is so desperate to find some flaw in the character of Barak Obama they are trying to make an issue of campaign financing. The details of this canard would put Fred Thompson to sleep but then, so does everything else. The McCain people continue to hammer away with phrases like, "broke his promise", "went back on his word" and the dreaded "flip-flop". (Is there any chance we could get a moratorium on flip-flop for Campaign 2008?)

McCain is frosted because Obama is killing him in the money-raising dept. America has already started voting with their checkbooks. Sadly for McCain, usual fat-cat Republican industrialists, having created sow's ear politicians like George W. Bush, are a bit chilled by McCain's cantankerous views. So the McCain people are screaming because Sen. Obama is paying for his campaign without taxpayer money. Good luck gaining any traction with that.

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The Inspector General' s office of the Justice Department has issued a report which confirms what everyone in Washington already knows. During the time that Alberto Gonzales was Attorney General and while Karl Rove and Harriet Meyers were still a Rasputin-like force in the White House, the hiring process at Justice was co-opted by conservative ideologues. There sole charge was to recommend only "vetted" candidates whose political and social beliefs were in lock step with the Bush Administration.


Although Rove has his pudgy fingerprints all over this bit of cynicism, the practitioners were the minions on the steering committee. Singled out for special scorn was one Esther Slater McDonald. As a graduate of Pensacola Christian College and Notre Dame Law (I guess Liberty College was full up) her role was to identify and tag any candidate who showed signs of "wrong thinking" . That included a Stanford grad who had written a law review article on discrimination in the military and a Harvard alum who had worked as a paralegal at Planned Parenthood.

In case you're thinking that this is just a perk of the incumbent party and that "everybody does it", forget that.

Prior to 2002 jobs at Justice for the honors and intern programs were awarded based on merit. The process only became truly perverted during the Bush years, particularly in 2006 under Gonzales. The situation became so polluted that even senior Bush appointees were holding their noses.



George the Lesser has a lot to answer for but, allowing entire departments of government like Interior, Environmental Protection and, Justice to be corrupted by scum like Rove, Meyers, Gail Norton, and Gonzales is neglect bordering on the criminal. Nixon may have been a crook but he was never guilty of this level of incompetence.

...or should we wait before shoveling dirt on Karl Rove?

It is sooooo tempting. The person who raised Prince of Darkness to a cabinet post is calling it quits. The man most responsible for handing America George W. Bush has resigned his post as co-president/Rasputin to the White House's emptiest suit. Presumably he will slink back to hell or whatever moldy rock he crawled out from under. He can certainly leave with clean hands. He will not be the man that history remembers as the architect of the debacle in Iraq. The blood of 3,600 Americans and 75,000 Iraqis won't be on his conscience. Quotes like, "They will treat us like liberators", and " The oil revenues will pay for the war" will not be attributed to Mr. Rove. "Mission Accomplished" might have been his but, you'll never know it. As "the guy behind the guy" Rove is free to flit away to inflict yet more damage to America's prestige and status. Rove told Paul Gigot that he would have left last year but, after the Congressional hosing that the administration received in '04, Karl didn't want to leave on a sour note. That's actually funny. This is the guy responsible for more sour notes than your high school band in their tribute to John Williams. If you want to know why every thinking American (defined as those who vote regularly for the enlightened Democratic party) hates Karl Rove, I'll tell you...he beat the Democrats bloody every time and made it look easy. Hell, we helped him. The Rove saga begins in 1970. While a student at the University of Utah, Rove worked for the Republican party landing a job helping GOP candidates in Illinois. In Karl's case "helping" involved breaking into the campaign offices of Alan Dixon ( running for senator) and stealing 1,000 sheets of official campaign stationary. He then used the paper to print flyers promising free beer, food and girls to anyone attending a Dixon rally. The flyers were distributed at rock concerts and homeless shelters. His playbook for elective politics includes sifting through a candidate's garbage, a job he presumably reserves for himself. Rove has had two wives, no degree despite enrolling in several universities, and naturally, no military service. What he has is a history of dirty tricks and barely legal antics across 35 years of political puppeteering. This guy would make Chuck Colson blush. He's Dick Tuck without the leprechaun charm. Isitjustme is unable to provide background for all obscure historical references. Please Google any obscure people or incidents at your leisure. Rove really came into his own when he was asked to help defeat Ann Richards, the reasonably popular Democratic Governor of Texas in 1994. Karl had a somewhat spotty record as a political consultant up to that point. He helped John Ashcroft win a Senate seat in 1994 but six years later he assisted Ashcroft in his loss to a dead guy. Anyway, George W. Bush was the ideal candidate for Karl Rove; all hat no cattle. In George W., Rove saw a famous name attached to an affable, dopey cowboy that was never going to be invited to a Mensa clambake. Karl knew that as long as George stayed on script (and off the sauce) the sky was the limit. During the Texas campaign in 1994, Rove disguised political operatives as pollsters. They would contact voters and inquire as to whether they would vote for Gov. Richards if they knew that her administration was dominated by lesbians. Cute! Much to her ultimate chagrin, Governor Richards never took li'l George too seriously. One year later he was in the governor's mansion and she was selling Frito's in a super bowl commercial with Mike Dukakis. In the 2000 presidential race Karl knew that he had a winner in George W. Bush. All he had to do was flatten all of the other candidates. However, things were gloomy after the first few primaries. John McCain, war hero and tough campaigner, was winning. No problem. Before the South Carolina primary Rove masterminded an appeal to the Palmetto State's first love....racism. While George W. was speaking at Bob Jones University (the christian school that prohibited interracial dating) Rove's minions were telling SC residents that John McCain had fathered an interracial child. Is this guy a charmer or what? The rest is just more of the same. He chaired the White House Iraq Group whose mission was to sell the invasion of Iraq to the American people. Working with those Defender of the Truth, Dick Cheney and Don "generals don't know shit about war" Rumsfeld, America was sold the largest pile of camel droppings since Lawrence of Arabia. When New York was attacked, we wanted to strike back and old Karl was right there with a target. In 2004 George W. Bush was running for re-election on a train wreck of failed international policies. Once again it was Karl Rove to the rescue. In a political maneuver that may go on record as the best ever, Rove was able to turn John Kerry's valorous war record and three purple hearts into what has now become the most popular term in low-blow politics, "swift-boating". Still, we should not be too quick to consign Karl Rove to the ash heap of politics as blood sport. As long as Americans prefer bumper-sticker slogans over actual information Karl will always be with us. Wherever voters would rather respond to any nonsense (like John Edward's $400 haircut) than change positions in an election, the Karl Roves will prosper. Karl Rove knows what dirty little secrets American voters take into the voting booth. He knows your prejudices and your fears. His mission is to present a candidate that appeals to them. As we careen into the madness of 2008, the Karl Rove Playbook will surface. The question isn't whether any candidate will adopt the "win at all cost" philosophy of Mr. Rove. The question is how many.