(cross-posted at daily kos)i've noticed commenters throughout the blogosphere claim that portgate is actually another brilliant behind-the-scenes rovian masterstroke designed to help the republicans distance themselves from the white house in time for the midterm elections and move cheney's embarrasing shooting cover-up off the front page.
curiously, during the media storm following the shooting i also noticed commenters claim that the cover-up was another brilliant behind-the-scenes rovian masterstroke designed to help the republicans distance themselves from the white house and move the wiretapping hearings off the front page ... and who also had previously claimed that those hearings were arranged to move the abramoff mess off the front page, which in turn was arranged to move the libby/delay indictments off the front page ... ad nauseum.
buried within this "karl rove: super-genius" meme lies a not-very-subtle scandal fatigue, a defeatism and resignation to the idea that rove in his god-like omniscience will always be just one step ahead of us dullards, that the latest counterfeit-scandal is really just a trap, artfully designed to make his gullible attackers look foolish, having taken their eyes off the ball, while ever-boosting the mojo of the republicans. what rot.
juan cole: "i think they get up in the morning and they face a set of situations in iraq and they try to develop policies to deal with those situations, and they get up the next day and there's a new set of situations and they develop policies to deal with those. i think it's reactive. i think it's ad hoc. i don't think there's a big picture. i think they're hoping that they can ultimately muddle through, that things will settle down enough so that they can get out of it with some dignity. i think it's probably a forlorn hope."
portgate and its handling was no more or better planned than was the shooting cover-up or its handling. once again they got caught with their pants down and their bloody red hands in the cookie jar full of cash for their cronies. since a number of our port affairs are already handled by foreigners, they obviously did not expect the public to suddenly notice or care, and are again not prepared to deal with the blowback from such attention — blowback they set themselves up for after five years of stoking their supporters' jingoism and xenophobia.
after having twice delivered the white house to the unlikely george bush, i can see why some would call him a genius. there's no doubt that he's a very
sleazysmart operator when it comes to running election campaigns. sosleazysmart in fact that he got himself booted off george sr.'s campaign team.
but genius in one area does not translate to genius in another, and it is of course possible for otherwise apparently smart people to make horrifically bad decisions. nor are they immune to bad luck. while bushCo™ seems to have a talent for electioneering, they display none whatsoever for governing. it could even be argued that they have no real interest in governing, as opposed to ruling — with a big stick, a short leash and piles of treasure to shower on the court cronies and toadies.
just look at bushCo™'s poll numbers: <snark>you'd think a super-genius could keep the sheeple happy while ruthlessly fleecing them.</snark> clinton's numbers remained in the 60s throughout the worst of his pummeling. (presiding over a boom and a surplus obviously helps.) bushCo™ has been reeling from a different new crisis every week and has been badly hemorrhaging supporters since fallujah.
i find it impossible to believe that rove (or any other supposed intelligent being, for that matter) would think that any strategery that would worsen the administration's deathly poll numbers and inflame not just his congressional opponents, but also his apologists and the last of his die-hard public supporters could possibly be a good one. what kind of genuis tries to put out a fire in one room of his house by repeatedly setting new fires in another? a super-genius, no doubt.
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I think the republicans are clutching at straws, there is real anger about the direction of the USA at many levels, not only the war, but also inequality.
ReplyDeleteSoldiers are mostly from poor families, especially in the USA. Why is that? Why aren't rich kids going off to war? What kind of democracy allows this to happen?
The fact that the poor are usually not very educated (some are stupid some are normal but none have made the most of their talents by working low paid jobs) reflects the fact that most higher education in the US is very expensive and private. Poor people are mostly excluded from it. The big change now is that unlike the past if you don't have a college degree you are unlikely to get a good job, and blue collar jobs are going to China Mexico and India, making the rich people that own the companies exporting those jobs richer (shareholders are included in this).
Increasingly middle income americans are affected too, mostly through their children. Sometimes as there are no good jobs to go to to live like a human being, people are forced to go to the army as it offers training and the only viable career...
Some become criminals... some become cleaners etc..
Whereas C students like Bush succeed based on their parents money not their own efforts, so this is hardly meritocracy. I wouldn't call Bush a smart man. I think he has outsourced the thinking to other unelected people which is a problem in a democracy.
As we live in a world were the rich can avoid the army, saying that poor people are the ones fighting the war is not a lie... Just think about it...
Both Bush and Cheney avoided going to Vietnam by Bush getting his rich family to intervene for him to guard the fearsome invaders in Texas (i.e. nobody), always at the ready from the bar, armed with several bottles of alcohol. Whereas Cheney used his university study as a reason not to go to Vietnam.
If they had fought in a war i would have much more time in listening to Bush or Cheney talk about the necessity of war, the reality is neither has experienced it... and they talk far too much about it.