Hats Off, Mr. Rove

Remember "compare and contrast" from your days of writing college essays? Lest you missed Karl Rove, the president's right hand man, the other day, he presented a better case for why people should vote for Democrats in 2006, or 2008, than any Democrat running for office. The thrust of Rove's argument is that Democratic view is "pre-9/11," or archaic, whereas the Republican Party is living in a "post-9/11," or back to the future world.

Might an Italian running for political office in Genoa, in the 1930's, have used Rove's defense for a "post-Mussolini," and "pre-Mussolini" world? Oh, I know what you're thinking-- there can be no comparing George Bush and Benito Mussolini. After all, Mussolini was much better looking! So, if not Italy, how about Spain, and a"pre-Franco," and "post-Franco" dichotomy? Joking aside: dominion by domination of the executive branch is subversive, in the best possible sense of the word, and an insult to what the framers of our Constitution had in mind.

There is no small irony in the fact that a strategist for the opposing party is helping to define the platform for its opposition. This comes as no surprise in a country that is grossly obese while more than 60% of its paid advertising is devoted to junk food. Why not junk politics? Why not the Jack Abramoff of junk politics? Maybe Karl Rove ought to run for president in 2008---after all, only Houdini could have escaped prosecution, in Leakgate, with such aplomb. but even Houdini didn't have hubris enough to believe he'd escape the iron jaws of history which will, soon enough, have, in their grasp, the Cheneys, Roves, Libbys, and others who break the law in the name of preserving the American way of life.