Let Me Count The Ways

Oh yeah, that Karl Rove guy is a genius. A real schemin’ Machiavelli. The most brilliant political strategist in recent times.

Right.

Let’s count the ways this administration is imploding.

Item:
Bush’s trumped-up “big speech” on Iraq Thursday morning went over like a Mars bar in the diabetes ward. As one pundit put it: “He turned up the volume on a broken record." Virtually no one is buying his case that Iraq was central to the war on terror. Meanwhile, we have now been in Iraq longer than U.S. troops fought in World War I. And the bloody fighting threatens to overshadow the constitutional voting a week from now.

Item:
Senator John McCain punched his President right in the nose yesterday, leading the U.S. Senate to vote 90 to 9 for a measure setting humane standards for interrogation i.e. an anti-torture bill. Ninety-to-nine against the threat of a veto. I believe that qualifies for the term “White House defeat.”

Item:
The White House is panicking as it attempts to quash a conservative revolt
against the nomination of Harriet “The Ham Sandwich” Miers to the Supreme Court. Now, there’s talk of Bush having to dump her.

Item:
The Bush administration has the honor of hosting the first White House spy in recent histor. So glad the Daddy Republicans are in power making us feel so snuggly-safe.

Item:
The new Republican House Majority Leader Roy Blunt, it turns out, was the recipient of “excess funds”  raised by his immediate predescessor, Tom "The Ham Sandwich" DeLay (please excuse the culinary repetition). Suppose this proves what goes around comes around.

Item:
The Bush administration’s former chief procurement official has now been indicted on charges of making false statements and obstructing the investigation into lobbyist and Tom DeLay butt-buddy Jack Abramoff. Can’t pin this one on Ronnie Earle.

Item:
FEMA, yes that FEMA has now been forced by public outrage to re-open $1.5 billion in sweetheart contracts doled out right after Katrina ("Abandon all cruise ships!").

Item:
Back to Genius Karl Rove. He’ll now be appearing once again before the Federal Grand Jury investigating the CIA leak on Valerie Plame. Not a few observers guess he and Scooter Libby are gonna get tagged.

My readers know I have argued, from the onset, that Karl Rove was over-rated. He’s a dull, unimaginative parochial political hack who lucked out with the Bush family.(No smarter than last decade’s celebrated “genius,” the wildly over-rated hack James Carville who turned out to be much more talented as a self-promoting carnival huckster).

It’s always been the Democrats, much more than the Republicans themselves, who have pumped up the fearsome image of the Sinister Rove. A convenient excuse for their own ongoing and myriad failures. No more excuses. This administration's political future is already foreclosed. All that’s left is the paperwork and the document signing. Anybody ready to move in and take over?

 

Comments

[Kevin]

Hey Marc, I don't think Roy Blount Jr. would appreciate being associated with Karl Rove. It's Roy Blunt.

[oops== thanks Kevin. -- MARC]

[richard lo cicero]

Off topic Marc but I just learned, via LA OBSERVED, that New Times may be buying out Village Voice Media. First we get the geeks from Tribune Media buying, and dumbing down, the LAT and now NEW TIMES WEEKLY? I shudder to think what that would mean since their LA product was a neocon rag! Probably endorsing Arnold!

Say it ain't so!

[WMD]

Spot on, Marc. The Bush machine has never been more nakedly on display -- and even John Ashcroft couldn't pull the curtain fast enough.

The question remains, as you have been pointing out for many months now, can the Democrats muster an alternative range of policies to address health care, the fragile economy (and lose the Clintons, stupid), and a foreign policy that opposes Chinese state capitalism and Islamic clerico-fascism -- but sensibly -- and while they're at it, why not some candidates worth rising from the couch to vote for?

[Rob Grocholski]

Dude, your clock is on speed. It's still Thursday. EST.

[Freddy the Pig]

Schadenfreude is a beautiful thing but I have a problem with joyously declaring the end of Republican dominance based on a bad week for Bush. If the Dems have been prey to any malady it's been assuming that it's all going so much in our favor that we don't even have to work for it: everyone will see that Gore/Kerry is so much smarter than Bush, the demographic trends will favor the Dems inexorably, and so on. Then somehow we lose anyway. Wha?

The fact remains that the Republican party has a bigger base than the Democratic party does and probably starts every presidential election with a 5+ point lead (as evidenced by the fact that NO Dem presidential candidate has broken the 50% mark since Johnson in '64, where several of the Republican presidents have); the Republicans have deeper bench strength, especially in the governor's mansions which is where presidents are most likely to come from rather than the Senate or House; the Republicans are growing in the fastest-growing parts of the country, while the Dems continue to concentrate further and further in big cities (and it doesn't help if you win Chicago or New York by an extra 5 points if you've already won that state); and even if the Republicans have fumbled a significant advantage on national security by way of Iraq, there's no evidence that the Dems have managed to recover that ball (not as long as ANSWER is planning our protests).

I hate to rain on the parade, I know we could use the chance to feel good, but the fact is we have to significantly out-play the other team just to stay even with them. They're the default, we have to make the case to overcome inertia. I wish it weren't true but so many elections in a row make it clear that it is. So I think the worst thing to do, this far out, is start settling into the same complacency that allowed Kerry to think he didn't have to answer the Swift Boat guys for two months, that allowed Gore to think he could take a lightweight rich boy with one hand behind his back. We need issues of our own, we need leaders with charisma (Harry Reid makes you miss the electric crackle that Tom Daschle brought into the room) and we need focus for the next 3 years. We need to never think it's so self-evident why we should win that we don't actually need to fight for it.

[Michael Balter]

Marc, it is your conclusion here that really counts, and I hope bloggers will really focus on it rather than extraneous issues: The way that the, omigosh, overwhelming brilliance and unstoppable, yikes, power of the right--I'm breaking out in a sweat just thinking about it--has become an excuse for not only Democrats but even progressives to not offer a strong alternative program but run like scared rabbits to vote for John Kerry and other timid responses. I don't know how many friends have told me about the awesome power of the religious right, paralyzed with fear, while at the same time telling me how depressed and discouraged they are. And this while, as you correctly point out, the right is going down the tubes. Again, what alternative is the left going to offer? Hillary Clinton in 2008? Come on, we can do better than that, can't we?

[Marc Cooper]

FTP: What Mike Balter said! I take no joy in the collapse that is underway. It's damaging to the country, not just the GOP. Nor do I believe for a moment that things automatically get better after they get worse.
My point is exactly what I said above. In the end, the Bush administration is one more mortal, venal, bass ackwards administration that is failing because of its own shortsightedness, ideological zeal and, yes, greed. I said it some time ago-- this crew is too small-minded to be effective imperialists or world conquerors. Much more a bunch of Babbitts than Caesars. A smart ruling class knows sometimes you need to make a few sacrifices and compromises to hold sway. But these guys are like used car dealers more than they are imperious statesmen.
The bluff of the Democrats, meanwhile, has been called. The administration thay have lambasted and scorned is now imploding and losing any sembalnce of a governing consensus. I personally believe the Democrats will nevertheless fold. Not because they are "weak" by the way. But because they, too, are mediocre and venal and they do NOT either represent nor care very much about the interests of most Americans.
Michael.. in that sense I dont believe the question is what will "the left" do? It's more like, what will all Americans, serious about our future, do?

[bunkerbuster]

Doesn't really matter how smart Rove is or isn't. It's his political formula, as described in Thomas Frank's "What's the Matter with Kansas" that matters.

The use of god, guns and gays to drive a wedge between the primary victims of GOP economic policies and their natural allies in the Democratic party will not end with the departure of W, no matter how ignominious his legacy becomes.

Rove may not have originated the concept of a permanent culture war, but surely he's due credit for having escalated it and his party's talent for channeling the energy and commitment of its fringe fanatics into mainstream electoral success.

We can reasonably expect a political backlash against the Bush team's failures in Iraq and Hurricane Katrina, but the structural problems remain.

In addition to some of the challenges others here have noted, we have:

1. Rising right-wing domination of media ownership.

2. The GOP's widening advantage in fund raising. Kerry had his wife's money. Where will Feingold, or Clark or Dean or Hillary get theirs? Dying unions? Trial lawyers? The Internet?

3. The deepening failure of the education. By 2008, a majority of the 30 percent of U.S. students who manage to graduate from high school will think ID is science, Saddam Hussein drove the jetliners into the WTC towers with Al Gore as his co-pilot and Fox News Channel is absolutely fair and balanced.

[bunkerbuster]

Doesn't really matter how smart Rove is or isn't. It's his political formula, as described in Thomas Frank's "What's the Matter with Kansas" that matters.

The use of god, guns and gays to drive a wedge between the primary victims of GOP economic policies and their natural allies in the Democratic party will not end with the departure of W.

Rove may not have originated the concept of a permanent culture war, but surely he's due credit for having escalated it and his party's talent for channeling the energy and commitment of its fringe fanatics into mainstream electoral success.

We can reasonably expect a political backlash against the Bush team's failures in Iraq and Hurricane Katrina, but the structural problems remain.

In addition to some of the challenges others here have noted, we have:

1. Rising right-wing domination of media ownership.

2. The GOP's widening advantage in fund raising. Kerry had his wife's money. Where will Feingold, or Clark or Dean or Hillary get theirs? Dying unions? Trial lawyers? The Internet?

3. The deepening failure of the education system. By 2008, a majority of the 30 percent of U.S. students who manage to graduate from high school will think ID is science, Saddam Hussein drove the jetliners into the WTC towers with Al Gore as his co-pilot and Fox News Channel is absolutely fair and balanced.

[bunkerbuster]

APOLOGIES TO ALL FOR DOUBLE POSTING. i may be a verbose prick, but I don't expect readers to tolerate that much redundancy...

[Jim Rockford]

Marc -- I think you're falling prey to Kos's secret plan to take over the DLC here. A bit of wishful thinking.

Bush makes his speech, and EVERY Democratic pal of mine who heard it was impressed. Yes we ARE fighting Al Qaeda there, just like we were fighting Al Qaeda on 9/11. More to the point the people on the ground paint a far different picture than the Media does on Iraq. You can't trust the reporting from the Superdome and Convention Center, how can you possibly trust the reporting from the bar of the Sheraton in Baghdad?

Given that the guy who blew himself up in Norman OK is looking like an Islamic Suicide bomber with a work accident, and the NYPD calling an alert for the NYC subways, and the Dems rushing to deny terrorism exists, and the next shoe waiting to drop from bin Laden (it's Ramadan), Bush is objectively right and seen that way by most people outside the Media bubble.

As Clinton would say, it's the Caliphate stupid. Oh wait I forgot the Freeh Book makes Dems once again look bad with Clinton deep sixing any effort to press the Saudis and hitting them up for cash. Dems and the Media are in deep denial about terrorism and will be punished for it when the next attack sadly happens.

Bush is right, Al Qaeda wants a Caliphate stretching from Spain to Indonesia and we can't avoid the fight. Sadly.

Torture stuff? Yeah that will go down to defeat right after the next terrorism attack here. We can't always be lucky. Not good to be afraid to turn up the AC or play loud music to terrorists as "torture." Probably some compromise coming from the House. McCain is pretty much toast inside the Reps for meeting with Mama Moonbat Sheehan. Never met a camera he didn't love or the acclaim of the Media but that only carries so far.

Miers? No argument there. A Crony McBuddy appointment, and the Dems are likely to whip up THEIR base by dumping her. Setting up a big fight over a real conservative.

The White House Spy? Guy worked for first Al Gore (in 1999), then Cheney. Sorry Marc wishful thinking has led you astray (and not being accurate here either). More like Clintonian sleeze left over, Charlie Trie and Johnny Huang etc.

Roy Blunt? In the same hot water as Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi (or the Dems Ronnie Earle took a pass on who did the same as DeLay, EXACTLY the same). That Earle's FIRST Grand Jury refused a bill of indictment says it all.

Safavian? No surprise there. I dealt with him. Briefly. I will give you that one as well.

Marc -- I can say you are dead wrong on Sweetheart contracts. I've responded to over 40 RFPs, I can tell you if the government wants the best price you are looking at about six months to a year at least and that's just for IT projects, from signing a contract. No work done just signing a contract. If you want it fast (and yes I've been part of teams that have responded to that) you are going to HAVE TO HAVE NO BIDS. Just that simple. No one is going to lose money scrambling the fighter jets, pulling people off projects elsewhere to respond to an urgent need without charging you an arm and a leg, and there are only a few contractors who can do that anyway. In the IT world you're looking at IBM and possibly EDS for something New Orleans scaled. THATS it. Massive scale companies don't grow on trees. Who the hell else would you bid on this? Joe's Demolition?

Marc -- you've covered the movie business. If a deal HAS to be done right away, everyone pays extra. Dickering can add months to years. Simple as that. All this "outrage" means is that New Orleans will just SIT AND ROT for six-12 months before a single contract is signed. Choose one: A. Save money; B. Get New Orleans recovery started NOW.

Rove? Marc you're suffering from Press group-think. WHY did Judy Miller sit in jail for 80 odd days, and only relent when Fitzgerald agreed NOT to ask her about sources other than Libby? WHY did Karl Rove offer to re-testify in JULY and only now is this accepted by Fitzgerald AFTER Miller's testimony? WHY did Judy Miller not write ONE WORD (unlike Matt Cooper) about her testimony? Do you honestly think that Miller's deep-sixing of Fitzgerald's Islamic Charities case has been forgotten? Do you honestly think Judy Miller would sit in jail to protect Karl Rove and not her other sources (named Wilson and Plame)?

Likelihood ... Fitzgerald will charge MILLER with obstruction of justice (hey, payback's a bit), and a whole bunch of folks in the CIA and elsewhere with disclosing methods, contacts, and sources for the US government's knowledge of foreign nuclear programs. Possibly including Plame and Wilson themselves. Getting a conviction of Rove or anyone else in the Bush Admin given the CIA's and Valerie Wilson's sloppiness in concealing her identity is almost impossible.

Fitzgerald does not appear cut from the clown-cloth of Ronnie Earle, who loses big ones (hey like LA DA's). Good DAs don't like losing and looking like idiots. Any indictment would have to be based on more than he-said she-said testimony if you expected to win. I'll call your attention to the fact that TIME's lawyers UNLIKE every other Media outlet, ran to turn over Cooper's notes. THAT little gem should tell you something (like maybe they didn't want to obstruct justice too).

You are right however that Rove and Carville are not gods. However in politics being the masters of the obvious is better than Estrich, Shrum, and other clueless idiots. At least Bush didn't hire Naomi Woolf to tell him to wear earth tones to be an "alpha male" or get orange looking man-tans.

Dems will start winning once they realize Bush is right about the fight with the Caliphate, and offer a better way of winning. Schumer will look like an idiot if bombs go off in the Subway soon. Imagine a GOP with Rudy and Dems with ... Hillary. Ick. Don't forget the DLC study that says the Dems are pulling away from the mass of voters. Stuff like the opposition of Mark Leno in Sacramento to putting electronic monitors on child molesters because it would infringe on their freedoms just screams political idiocy and bad policy to boot. LBJ was the last true FDR style Dem and until Dems get back to that they will lose and lose and lose.

[bunkerbuster]

JR if you really believe bin Laden and his supporters have the wherewithal to stand of chance of restoring the Caliphate, don't you think it was a massive strategic blunder to remove Saddam Hussein, the region's most vicious anti-Islamist regime and most substantial bulwark against Iran?

Are you really that soft?

If it's "the Caliphate stupid" why is the U.S. harrassing Syria, which has a record of massacring Islamist radicals that should make you quiver with satisfaction?

[Robert Fiore]

Actually, a Mars bar in a diabetic ward is something that the patients might crave but would make them deathly ill, so maybe that's a better analogy for Rove and the Bush Administration.

[Abbas-Ali Abadani]

fear and bloodlust

1985: "The Russkies are gonna nuke us! Kill a commie for your mommy!"

2005: "The ragheads are gonna nuke us! If only we had the will to nuke Pakistan and Afghanistan and free their women."

Same shit, different day.

I almost feel sorry for the likes of Rockford. Everything that could possibly go wrong for them, has gone wrong.

http://antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=7425

And yet, they stick to their guns... or keyboards as it were.

All they're left with is the fervent wish of some sort of a nuclear holocaust of some sort ... followed by some sort of Mad Max/Road Warrior scenario where they and like-minded patriots can live out their bloody fantasies.

http://moonbatcentral.com/wordpress/?p=1069

http://americanjihad.blogspot.com/2005/10/treason-in-wartime.html

FDR would be proud. And remember "we're" doing this for the sake of "democrats, feminists, and secularists" in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.

Although, of course, we will have to string up democrats, feminists and secularists and other liberal queers right here in Nueva Roma.

[Freddy the Pig]

"Same shit, different day. I almost feel sorry for the likes of Rockford. Everything that could possibly go wrong for them, has gone wrong."

Well, Abbas, if you're dismissing the Soviet threat and the al-Qaeda threat equally, then Bush is not the only one repeating history rather than learning from it, isn't he?

The problem with counting on the idea that "everything has gone wrong" in an election is that the GOP nominee will not be running against perfection. He will be running against a Democrat, who will have voted for it before viting against it, or have been married to the president who let his lawyers stop him from killing Bin Laden before 9-11, or something,

And this Dem will have supporters like you who don't even take terrorism seriously (I notice that as usual it was left out of the "Gods guns and gays" equation-- it really doesn't exist for you some of you folks, does it?) When I see things like this I can't help but feel that our losing streak will continue another couple of elections at least before we start getting a clue.

[Jim Russell]

If you really are a Dem Freddy, your understanding of the problem in your party can be intimidating to Repubs who would rather your party keep blaming political genius, money, dishonest elections and those dumb religious voters for their losses.

Repubs want to keep winning and there is always a small but outside chance the well educated, secularist, upper middle class, intellectual, socialist leaning Dems who now own your party will actual pick-up on your common sense.

Remember the days when your party represented the uneducated, religious, lower middle class, common sensed, patriot American laborer? The days when your party owned the red state voters? The days of FDR, Truman, JFK.... and a 30 year reign of power these voter gave their(your) party?

Your party left them, they didn't leave you. It's called no R.E.S.P.E.C.T..

[Michael Turner]

"Yes we ARE fighting Al Qaeda there, just like we were fighting Al Qaeda on 9/11."

We were fighting Al Qaeda on 9/11? I guess they just ... overwhelmed our finely-wrought defenses, and the extreme vigilance of the Bush administration?

"...and the Dems rushing to deny terrorism exists..."

Oh, man, Jim, what is it? Some medication that you're not staying on? Can you name a Democrat rushing to deny that terrorism exists? With this sort of delusional rhetoric, I'm tempted to believe that every "Dem pal" of yours who cheered Bush's address is also, coincidentally, named Jim Rockford, and has your shoe size, maybe the exact same dental records ....

I shouldn't have read further, but I did. Jim, here's the solution to the problem of speeding up bids on contracts for hurricane disaster cleanups: outline the disaster (which had been done pretty well in the open press for NOLA), and ask companies to make bids BEFORE hurricane season. That sounds like, um, disaster preparedness. That sounds like, um, coordination. That sounds like ... yeah ... like FEMA's job.

[Jim Russell]

I wanted to add, it is astoundingly amusing to read some of the intelligent lamenting by some of how red state voters could be so dumb as to vote against their own self-interest.

Well, did you ever stop to think maybe it isn't about the money?

[Jim Russell]

I hate it when I have to triple post. In the previous comment "the money" didn't mean money for campaigns, it meant money the Democratic Party would be better at protecting and increasing for the laborer.

Speaking of labor, time for work. :)

[Freddy the Pig]

I'm a disappointed Dem, Jim, but from Illinois, a one-party regime (named Democrat or Republican as convenient) which never affects the presidential election, so my opinions are purely academic.

I'm the sort of Dem whose jaw just drops when people supposedly on my side smugly say "We broke Iraq, we have to pay for it" and think that's geopolitical insight when anyone can see that our only choice was when we chose to engage, in some fashion, with the deteriorating nightmare of that country and the dysfunctional middle east. I want to believe there was some choice between sending the Marines and sticking our head in the sand until the sanctions regime fell apart. I want to believe there's some Democrat who can articulate what that was, too. Mr. "I have a secret plan" Kerry was NOT that Democrat, I knew even as I (pointlessly given the state I live in) voted for him.

I'm the sort of Dem forced to send my kids to a private school and facing a party so entrenched with braindead teachers' unions that they fight parents like we're the enemy.

Oh, and I'm the sort of Dem who gave money to McCain in 2000 to help him beat Bush in the primaries, and then gave money to and voted for Gore, so I don't want to hear from any Kosites who voted Nader in 2000 (because there was no difference between the parties) that I'm not a real Dem for holding the above non-party-line opinions.

[richard lo cicero]

Maybe I started it by asking an off-topic question but I'd like to get back to the subject of Karl Rove. I tend to agree with you Marc that he is not some Evil super genius but he is a very smart disciple of the late Lee Atwater and a very good political operative.

Consider the fact that he told everyone that Bush lost the 2000 popular vote because shrub left three million evangelical/fundementalist votes on the table. Rove made it his mission to get those three million to the polls in 2004 and centered the reelection strategy on ginning up the base. This defied the conventional wisdom of the media and both Democratic and Republican consultants that in a General you move to the Center. Rove ignored that and, on election day, those people came out in droves and gave Bush his majority. Of course he was helped by Kerry's ineptness and the campaign to make "Security" moms feel only GWB would protect them from terror. But that still requires that you recognize the other guy's weakness. And to go after Kerry's war record, when your own guy has a glass chin, was a bold, if despicable, move.

Look, I'm really not in awe of the guy but let's be fair. He was in charge and he took a real sow's ear and turned it to silk. Then Rove got caught up in the kind of dirty tricks that his mentor was known for. But this time he messed with the CIA and they don't forget. Now he faces indictment and at a time when Chimpy has finally been exposed, So its back to the War on terror to see if any water is still in that well. Probably not.

So I agree Marc. Rove is not infallible and omniscient. But give credit where it is due.

[mikey]

With this political implosion at such a zenith, the only thing to do is raise the terror threat level in NY! Scare 'em back to fealty!

[richard lo cicero]

And one more thing. I think James Carville would have run a much better campaign than Bob Schrum. I knew Schrum in the Sixties when I was in Intercollegiate Debate and he was one of the sharpest guys I knew and someone who you did not want to get into an argument with because of his forensic abilities. Unfortunatly a campaign is not a debate, much as we'd like it to be and Schrum never realized that. Carville knows its a back alley brawl. I can't believe he would have let the Swift Boater's pull their shit.

[Freddy the Pig]

Richard Lo Cicero, I agree that Rove's "genius" is a myth and what he is, clearly, is merely a smart guy with a visible strategy that worked; activating the base was part of it but remember, the other part was a campaign strongly aimed at the growing suburbs and exurbs. Look at the campaign appearances the two candidates made-- Bush in exurbs, talking to families and churches in places where people are committed to their new cornfield communities and believe that voting can make a difference; Kerry in big cities, talking to historically low-turnout groups like blacks, Latinos and the young. No wonder Bush and Rove got more bang for the buck out of such a strategy, even in the one election where the Dems HAD more bucks.

Also, one of Kerry's big failures-- and a revealing one-- is the underuse of Edwards, who actually could have had some appeal in the exurbs, more than Kerry would have. This has to be the race with the lowest profile VP candidates on both sides in modern history, but at least Cheney's secretive behavior involved visiting the hardest of the hardcore base, well below media radar. Where was Edwards? Why wouldn't Kerry let him speak? Or does the question answer itself?

[Rich]

"I'm the sort of Dem forced to send my kids to a private school and facing a party so entrenched with braindead teachers' unions that they fight parents like we're the enemy."

Hmm, before moving to California, I was also a Dem in Illinois, as well as a previous public school attendee, and for some reason I just can't recall this mass forcing of kids to private schools. I do remember Rockford's desgregation lawsuit, however, and how many of the city's conservative "leaders" bitterly fought its resolution for years--almost as if the kids who suffered institutionalized racism and horribly unfair district spending disparities were "the enemy". Ah, the memories.