Karl's Kronicles...
So are we over the bombshell of Rove leaving his Lord and Master yet? Bush’s closest and longest-serving advisor will be resigning in about 10 days. Will there be beer and pizza party’s all over the land? Drunken, naked pool party’s cropping up on every block in America? Shall the hounds of hell be released with chaos and anarchy the rule of the day? Wait! Let me pop some popcorn first…I don’t want to miss this…not a minute of it!
Let’s just see here for just a moment. It seems our Karl is grateful to have been a “witness to history.” Hmmm, well…I guess he not only witnessed it, he made it too. We all know that ol’ Karl was instrumental in shaping policy decisions and Republican campaign strategies…so that would explain how he got the moniker…”the architect” by none other than Bush himself and “Bush’s brain” by those that would criticize him. Not bad…not bad at all. He’s been doing his magic since 1993 when Bush first ran for governor of Texas. That’s a long time to be hooked at the hip with some guy. But apparently they severed the cord…because Karl needs to spend more time with his family. Oopsie!…I choked on my popcorn…now I need a swig of my root beer…ah…that’s better.
Well…it looks to me like Karl’s departure comes close upon the heels of Congressional Democrats revving up their investigations into poor little Karl’s role in the U.S. attorneys dismissals and some hanky panky use of government agencies…gulp…for political purposes. Yikes! What could he have been thinking? I guess he wasn’t really…because he invoked executive privilege to defy a subpoena to testify before the Judiciary Committee chaired by Senator Patrick Leahy. Now…we know in our little brains that we’d not get away with something like that…it would be utterly horrifying in the extreme for us to try. I’m talking leg irons here and maybe some chains for good measure…because we’d be deperados by this time. So our Karl got his name added to a growing list of people within this madministration that have defied the Congress’s subpoena…because when you work for Bush and Cheney…you can do that it would seem. It’s called contempt of Congress usually.
Here’s what The Hartford Courant said…”Love him or hate him, Rove has a record of success that puts his contemporaries to shame.” In 2000, he helped Bush defeat a charismatic war hero, John McCain, in the primaries, and a sitting vice president, Al Gore, in the general election. In 2002, he engineered a Republican takeover of Congress. And in 2004, he shocked Democrats who thought they had Bush on the ropes. In large part due to his genius, the Republican Party came closer to being a majority governing party than it had been in 70 years.”
Well…I beg to differ with the genius part…they were all underhanded and outright cheated both elections…they didn’t win anything but a lot of peoples contempt. What Karl really sweated to the oldies over was wanting to ensure a permanent Republican majority. His technique was a take-no-prisoners in governing stance…and it backfired on our little blossum. Instead of working bi-partisan politics with Social Security and immigration he tried what he does best…and strong armed the opposition like during the campaigns. So it seems he didn’t leave his Decider much in the way of a legacy of accomplishments regarding policy…no sir…quite the opposite. I wonder if Daddy #41 finally got through to sonny…that a legacy is something to cherish because it is one’s history and you sort of want it to look good if possible. Hmmm…no I don’t think so!
I guess for years we’ve all thought of Karl as the Puppet Master…the guy pulling the strings…oh come on…let’s call it what it was. He was the Boogeyman! There I said it! We thought he was the Maestro leading the orchestra of the Republican successes. So it would seem now that the Republicans would like to lay the blame at his door for their failures. Why am I not surprised at that? He didn’t pull the magic rabbit from the black hat…he offered advice to anyone that would listen…it just so happened that his boss liked to listen a lot. But it seems all good things do come to an end…as did Bush’s popularity in large part due to the lies and failures of Iraq. Let us not forget Katrina…that deserves a big spot in his legacy for the Pesidential Library. There’s a good laugh…can’t wait to see what little accomplishments he manages to find for it. Oh, that’s right…there aren’t any! So Karl’s genius for strategy didn’t quite work for him in the end it seems.
Actually, the damage this man has inflicted can’t be overstated, said Andrew Sullivan in The Atlantic Online. The nub of Rove’s approach was “divide and conquer,” which may work in campaigns, but is poison as a governing philosophy. After 9/11, Americans were ripe to be united. But Rove took this historic opportunity and “threw it away in a binge of hate-filled niche campaigning, polarization, and short-term expediency.”
So what we ask ourselves might be next? With Karl gone there definitely will be a void to fill…but by whom? We curious citizens of America have lived long enough to see our Constitution eroded in a way never thought imaginable. We have lived to see the Patriot Act used upon its inhabitants unlawfully. We have our phones and computers bugged…we can be jailed at a moments notice if we are perceived to interfere with Bush’s plans regarding terrorism. That’s a deal breaker for me right there. He’s not smart enough to make plans for anything. But if he’s making them…and we criticize or interfere with it…we are so at Guantanamo! Yeah…with Karl gone…Bush won’t have anything better to do…than to make up more things to take away from us…because that’s what school yard bullies do. Mark my words…he’ll grab our lunches next!
With the exception of Vice President Dick Cheney, Bush’s inner circle is now populated entirely by “the kinds of Washington pragmatists and insiders” that Bush had once disdained, said Jim Rutenberg and Steven Lee Myers in The New York Times. The White House could now be more inclined to work with Congress to forge compromises on energy, immigration enforcement, and other areas. While many analysts say Bush’s lame duck status has officially begun, Bush aides have denied that. “There’s no question the window is narrowing,” said Joel Kaplan, Bush’s deputy chief of staff. “But it’s not closed.”
Yeah right Joel…look out for your lunch sack buddy…because I hope you think it’s worth it!
Labels: Bush, iraq war, Judiciary contempt, Rove plague
