The Great American Intellect

I find myself mystified as I consider the goings on of the past several days in regards to the uncovering of Karl Rove's involvement in disclosing the identity of a CIA operative, saying she's the wife of former Ambassador Wilson. As has been oft reported over these days, a simple search on the internet very easily reveals Wilson's wife's name, Valerie Plame. In this light, the assertion that he did not break any rules because he "did not mention her name" seems, in my judgment to be a bit disingenuous. It is rather a lot like splitting hairs for Rove and his supporters to base their defense on that. Through it all, the American public has been pretty quiet on this.

You realize, of course, this outing incident did not occur in a vacuum. It's been speculated that Rove was feeling a bit peevish because Wilson had not joined lockstep with the rest of the lemmings in bush administration, whose main function was to rubberstamp all the claims by the bushies to support their decision to go to war. Rove may possibly have felt that Wilson needed to be taken down. At any rate, it was at this point that Karl Rove, on deep background, made his comment to Matt Cooper of Time Magazine. He also sneered to MSNBC's Chris Matthews that Wilson's wife was "fair game".

Rove, as those of us who are aware of his past track record know, has a nasty little habit of expertly using character assassination to demolish those who stand in his way. If you're interested, look into his tactics against political opponents in Texas like Ann Richards, or in Georgia like Max Cleland.

Take a moment, if you will, to consider Rove's work on
Cleland, described in this quote from GNN School of Rove, by Liam Scheff http://gnn.tv/articles/951/School_of_Rove:
"When ... Senator Cleland was up for re-election, the Republicans ran an ad on television that showed Max Cleland – a veteran who left three limbs in Vietnam, an American hero, who’s spent every day of his adult life in service to his country – on the same screen with Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein – and said that Cleland voted to stop the Homeland Security bill."

Given the gaping holes in the premis of the ads, this would have been a good time for the much vaunted American intellect, at least the Georgia branch, to show up. Sadly, it did not, and Cleland was defeated, in large part due to these ads which succeeded in convincing Georgia voters that Cleland was no better than Saddam and bin Laden.

It will be interesting, if not necessarily uplifting, to see if that intellect is anywhere around for this whopper. Or maybe we'll just get the beer guzzling, Jerry Springer watching, reality television loving, gullible, brain-on-hold-so-play-to-my-biases-so-I-don't-have-to-think-for-myself kind that seems to be taking over in our country.

The American intellect.....unh-huh.

Karl Rove is Deep Throat?

Well isn't this just an interesting kettle of fish? The bush meister of dirty tricks, Karl Rove, the man with his hand clearly visible in back of bush's jacket pulling the strings, is allegedly a source in the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame. In case you don't remember this one, the ascertion that Iraq was buying weapons grade uranium from Niger was an important piece in the buildup to war with Iraq. Plame's husband, former ambassador (and White House critic) Joseph Wilson, was assigned to investigate these reports. He reported finding no evidence to support those allegations. Shortly after his findings were released, his wife was publicly named as a CIA agent, putting her personal safety at risk.

Now it seems likely that Karl Rove played a role in this sordid situation. I want to have the "shaking my head, asking how this could happen" moment until I remember that old worn out truism, "Absolute power corrupts, absolutely". And, there is no question in my mind that the bush acolytes have absolute power.

This culture of unquestioning acceptance by our Stepford nation of people, who allow their emotions to be inflammed by broad-brush rhetoric, who allow their opinions to be easily manipulated, who can't be bothered to take to time to find out information both pro and con before making a decision, who let themselves off the hook because they don't have time to inform themselves, this culture borne of all these may just wake up one day to find that we have conspired to bring about our own undoing.

Anyway, I see this nation's looking the other way when all these dirty tricks are played as tacit approval of the tactics. Karl Rove has been in the cat-bird's seat all this time because he is willing to play the dirty tricks and bush is willing to let him. Is winning by cheating really the American Way????