Karl Rove: Decoy for Downing Street

I'm tired, heartsick, and cranky so I'm going to be very blunt and more than a little profane.

The news for the next few days will all be about what Karl Rove meant in his recent speech.  Did he really mean that all liberals are traitors?  Is it really a philosophical difference about how to pursue terrorists? Does it compare with what Dick Durbin said?  I'd bet that the Republicans timed this massive "liberals are traitors" blitzkrieg as soon as Durbin spoke that unpleasant truth on the Senate floor.  They believed it gave them a license to tell pretty much any eliminationist Dolchstoßlegende they wanted.  And they wanted.  Oh, how they wanted.

But this whole firestorm about Karl Rove is a bullshit distraction.  Just like the firestorm around Dick Durbin was a bullshit distraction.  Durbin was telling the truth, Rove is telling a particularly nasty lie, but it's all going to dominate the news cycle.   And the structure as it's been set up lets the Republicans trot out all of their bogus talking points about how they're all manly men whose brass balls are so big they have to walk all gingerly bowlegged so as not to make an oddly euphonious clanging sound which would lure in all of the women from the surrounding countryside, and if it wasn't for that, they'd be out there themselves impaling terrahrists on their big manly bayonets.  It lets the Republicans trot out still more eliminationist rhetoric both from their political leaders and their media apparatchiks.

Just for shits and giggles, let's say that for the first time ever, George Bush fires someone for being too much of a bastard, too nasty, too vile, too wrong.  So fucking what?  Does anyone think that Karl Rove won't continue as an under-the-table consultant?  This is the most secretive White House in history.  You think they can't hide some correspondence with Karl Rove if they want to? 

And even if the White House really did sever ties with Rove, does anyone think he won't be offered a hundred consulting gigs and a cozy sinecure with Grover Norquist's group or some other anti-American Republican think tank, where he can pull the puppet strings on ten or twenty campaigns if he wants to?  Rove doesn't give a shit whether or not he has to resign.  He's done everything he can for the hollow suit in the Oval Office, and he knows it.

It's all a distraction.  Because you know what's not in the news for a few more news cycles?  The occupation of Iraq.  The Downing Street Minutes and all the other British memos.  When the majority of the American people now believe the invasion of Iraq wasn't worth it, that all those dead  and maimed soldiers and children aren't worth it, when there's finally some evidence gathered in one place that shows what those of us opposed to the invasion have been saying all along, what's on the news?

Are Liberals Traitors?  Film at Eleven!

Keep your eye on the ball, people.  Maybe you could tie the two themes together:

"Why did famously disciplined Karl Rove choose this moment, when the media is starting to investigate the Downing Street Minutes, to make a profoundly controversial public statement he must have known would cause a firestorm?  By his deliberately outrageous insult, is he trying to distract the public attention from the President's awful poll numbers and the violent quagmire in the President's occupation of Iraq?"

Update:  Oh, look.  There' s a fact pattern to back up my cui bono sleight-of-hand analysis.  Props go, as they so often do, to Shakespeare's Sister.

Comments

[Barry Freed]

Damn you're good.

I don't mind very much the infrequency of your posting. Not when you damn near hit the mark nearly every time. I read a lot of blogs but yours is the only I find myself thinking whenever the latest major development or outrage hits the scene, "I wonder what paperwight's take is on this." This is the pithiest blog I know - a more terse, less verbose Digby.

Did I mention that you're good.

[paperwight]

You're really very kind, Barry. Thank you. I'm sorry that you find the posting too infrequent. I really don't do same-day news response (I recommend The Carpetbagger Report and Shakespeare's Sister for that), and I'm trying to develop several arcs of thought simultaneously.

That + other responsibilities slows me down. But I had thought I was doing OK. I'll see if things speed up as I plug along.

[Abby]

Oh, please, don't worry about speeding uo. I think what Barry is saying is that we appreciate you, especially given the fact that you've got a lot going on with your day job. We know that you can't post as much as you'd like, but we're grateful when you do.

Let me add that your prose is wonderfully lucid. Even when I'm too depressed by this world to wade through others' work, I find your stuff wonderfully clear.

[Barry Freed]

I probably could have been more clear above. Abby more or less has it right (and I second the point about your prose). Please don't feel pressured to increase the pace of posting. The vast majority of your posts are incisive, insightful and thoughtful. That's not stuff that can be rushed at will. I'd much rather have you continue in that vein than simply pump out posts out of some false sense that every thing under the sun needs commenting upon.

One of the few times that I have felt like getting on your case was over the latest Dean flap, and especially about the reverberations among the Dems/libs/lefties.

BTW, Billmon has a post that's well worth reading along similar lines.

[eRobin]

Hey, why the long face, brother? This is the asshole Rove at his most desperate and that's a very good thing. He's a one-trick pony and far from the fucking genius that everyone says he is. The pony won't prance as prettily this time around though. He's in the shit and America's brain is starting to cramp up a little bit around the edges - the edges that store memories of Vietnam.

I accept that the corporate media will give him as much cover as he wants. I accept that right now we're in full-on distraction mode. None of that bothers me because we know that playing field. My only worry - and it's a considerable one - is that the Dems don't see this moment for the potential tipping point it is. They must figure out a way not to leave the message that the Republican (BushCo) obsession with Saddam has made America less secure. Everything they say must come back to the very clear message that the Republicans are not on the side of America and that their obsession with Saddam has made us less secure. (this is true for the torture issue as well, but I wouldn't bring that up right now since it tends to confuse people) Insecurity is what Americans fear most - not losing freedom, not losing access to justice, not spreading liberty around the globe. Just keep the bogeyman, or men, from the door and we'll love you forever. If the Dems can make a unified America the subtext of their message, I think they'll never stop winning. (setting aside eVoting)

My Fourteen Point Plan, which bypasses the corporate media, is here.

[paperwight]

eRob - Heartsick is over the rabid pro-torture lobby, and the people who call themselves "moderates" or "centrists" who balk at criticism of torture. I'm not heartsick or even particularly bothered over the Rove fluff. Just cranky that more people can't immediately recognize it for what it was.

I agree that this was a pretty desperate move, and I have long taken the position that Rove (and Republican politicians generally) only do a few things, over and over again, with great gusto and no conscience.

[eRobin]

Just cranky that more people can't immediately recognize it for what it was.

I'm getting the idea that the Left Wing Noise Machine, such as it is, is doing a good job of not only recognizing the stunt for what it was but for also capitalizing on everything that Rove dragged up onto the table with it. The Center for American Progress certainly gets it. Kicking Ass gets it. It's going to be all about whether the Dems can stay focused and unrelenting in public. I'd lock Biden in a hotel room in Belize for the next two weeks if I could.

[Desert Donkey]

paperwight, as others have said, dont sweat the frequency of the posts. I keep you on my very short list of blogs to frequent because you say interesting things in interesting ways. It would be rude of us to expect you to add high volume to the package.

Rove is like the new Bewitched movie .. a witch pretending to be witch. Apparently his talking chimp has been unable to draw enough attention so Carl had to get out front an be the entertainment this week.

[bill]

Paperwight, you're dead on that Rove's speech was intended as distraction. Perhaps simply from the Downing Street Minutes, more likely from the swirl of bad stories and outcomes of late.

The importance of his ruse is that he thinks it will become THE story, as you say. What the opposition needs to do is to keep pounding on the real stories.

Kudos.