The ample-assed “brain” of Dubya, Karl Rove, announced his departure from the White House this week, and the air waves were thick with pundit-wisdom on this supposed genius of the modern political arena. How easily public figures earn such designations. I always think of Henry Kissinger, hailed in his time as a brilliant geostrategist and practitioner of cold war realpolitik, whose ham-fisted policy of stalemate in the middle east contributed very substantially to the outbreak of the 1973 Arab-Israeli war (not to mention the continuing disaster in Israel/Palestine) and whose Nobel Prize-winning Paris Peace Accord was sabotaged by the man himself before the ink was dry. Rove’s reputation is similarly inflated, and we often hear about his meticulous district-by-district, precinct-by-precinct analysis, his get out the vote strategies, etc., but honestly – what did the guy really accomplish? He basically lost the 2000 election against Gore, who was about as flat-footed a candidate as could have been imagined at the time, then very nearly lost four years later (with all the advantages of 9/11 at his back) to John Kerry, more than Gore’s equal in the flat-footed category. Where’s the magic?

Seems much of Rove’s vaunted talent is about luck, much about a very entrenched G.O.P. electoral machine (crucial for Ohio in 2004), and three parts right-wing media echo chamber – the talk show yammerers, tabloids, and reactionary bloggers that push the pusillanimous and profit-obsessed mainstream media to the right on just about every issue. Without those natural advantages, Rove/Bush would have gotten nowhere. For Christ’s sake, the Democrats handed their ass to him on a plate and he practically handed it back… twice, pulling off razor-thin victories that made JFK’s 1960 win look like an electoral landslide. How do their two elections compare with LBJ in ’64, Nixon in ’72, Reagan in ’84, or even Dubya’s father in ’88? Pretty poorly, that’s how. And as a political strategist/advisor, what has he managed to accomplish between elections? His boss enjoys abysmal approval ratings, his administration in a shambles. If it weren’t for the total ineptitude and disingenuousness of the Democratic leadership, I doubt there would have been an administration left for Rove to quit by this time. Seems to me a bona fide political genius might have managed to keep his man from scraping his ass all the way to the finish line.

My guess is that the Democrats will miss Rove more than the Republicans. He makes a good target – he is obnoxious and despicable, to be sure – and it fits into the general narrative that everything was swell until the Mayberry Machiavellians came to town. That is the theme of the Hillary campaign… back to the future. Don’t buy it, friends. As much as Bush has been able to destroy the U.S. empire merely by strolling through it, Bill Clinton was culpable for considerable misery, including an eight-year campaign of economic strangulation and bombing against Iraq that cost at least 500,000 lives. There are marginal differences, but nothing to get too giddy about. And while Rove bears substantial responsibility for the carnage that has occurred since, he isn’t the mastermind the Dems make him out to be. In fact, a cursory look at the past fifty years of electoral history shows him to be a third-rate Svengali, less accomplished than Michael Deaver or James Carville.

The most influential figure over the past three election cycles was named Bin Laden. And that fucker cast his votes with hijacked planes.

luv u,

jp

Just call them Fido, because they rolled over again. Yes, friends… our Democratic controlled Congress handed Dubya Bush (mister 28% himself) a bill that in essence rewrites the foreign intelligence surveillance laws that have been in place since just after the Church committee back in the mid-1970s, enabling the Administration’s intelligence services to listen in on phone conversation, read e-mails, etc., without a warrant, subject only to the approval of two guys appointed by the president – the attorney general (!) and the Director of National Intelligence. It was triangulation, of course, in the House – conservative and “centrist” Dems voting with Republicans to gain a majority; similar story in the Senate. Liberals voted against it, but the leadership could have scuttled it… and didn’t. So there you go. As with the Iraq war supplementals, Congress has signed on to a very destructive and unpopular policy because they’re afraid of being terror-baited by a president whose power base has shrunken to historic lows. Useless.

I wish I could say that it’s no worse than that, but the fact is… it is worse than that. Just one example – the Democrats are pusillanimous enough to grant Bush another $8 million for “missile defense” in the defense authorization bill, claiming victory because it was less than he asked for. That was part of a $450 billion piece of legislation that is chock full of waste spending and bones thrown to various congressional districts, but I mean honestly – how can they justify spending another $8 billion on such a pointless program? This at a time when we’re telling people we can’t afford to provide them with health care or decent housing or a minimal college education. But it is a political truism for both parties that when it comes to military spending, they can always put their hands on the money. That’s because of the dynamics of the military industrial economy affect congressmembers’ from both parties in about the same way. Republican or Democrat, you want that D.O.D. money flowing to your district – that’s what brings in the votes.

So… where from here? Good question. Anyone who supposed the 2006 election was something akin to a revolution was kidding him/herself. Change comes from us, not from pre-packaged, poll-driven, lobbyist-funded politicians. We have to speak with a united voice, one that is loud enough to overwhelm the influence of corporate money. (In other words, pretty goddamned loud.) Until we can get that faculty together, it will be the same deal over and over again – Democrats promising the moon and stabbing us in the back the moment they’re elected. And scoundrels like Bush starting wars and spying on us because there is no one to stop them. Dag nab it, we’ve got to stand up fer ourselves! If’n we do, maybe that scrawny old Harry Reid will, too! (Great… now I’ve got frontier accent syndrome again. Bloody Democrats! See what your spinelessness has done to me!)

Anyway… Congress (Fido) a good dog. It comes to whoever calls it. We just have to get a little better at doing the calling.

luv u,

jp