Karl Rove's Diary: Escaping the Lame Duck
Trap
June 7, 2005
By Bernard Weiner, The
Crisis Papers
Dear
Diary,
Things certainly aren't going the way I planned them.
I thought the second term would be pretty much like the first,
only more-so: setting the agenda, getting pretty much our own way
in Congress, the world acquiescing to our policies and demands,
confused Democrats not offering much in the way of an opposition,
the mass-media automatically taking their cues from us, the poll
numbers remaining fairly high, etc.
Yeah, of course, I realized that there's always a lame duck effect
in a second term, but we anticipated it wouldn't really show up
until late-2006 or early-2007. But we were at 49% favorable right
after the election - how very odd (hee, hee!) that was about the
same percentage Bush received in the exit polls - and now we're
in the mid- and low-40s. Damn! If we don't regain the momentum,
we're going into free-fall.
I think the problem is that we didn't think big enough in terms
of numbers; we barely squeaked by in 2004. We should have, how shall
I put this, ensured much larger popular and electoral vote totals.
If we'd won by 60%, or even 55%, we'd have had much more political
momentum behind us, and therefore fewer challenges - certainly fewer
Republican pols willing to stand up to us.
But when the perception is that half of the population voted for
the other guy, that means we're hauling a huge anchor around our
neck. Even after the beating we and our Swiftie friends laid on
Kerry, and with our doing everything to keep the Dem vote down,
and with throwing lots of red meat to our hungry fundamentalist
friends - even after all that, we were barely able to push our guy
over the finish line.
So, after a brief second-term honeymoon period, when we got the
bankruptcy, estate-tax and class-action bills passed - payment in
kind to our generous supporters - it's been a hard slog.
CALLING JOHN-THE-ENFORCER
We sure took our lumps with Bolton. We thought he'd be a sure-thing;
now we may have to recess-appoint him if any more of those goddamn
"moderate" Republicans bolt. They're pretending to be upset that
John-the-Enforcer tried to get recalcitrant CIA analysts fired and
now the new revelation, that Bolton illegally orchestrated the firing
of a U.S. undersecretary of state from a global arms-control agency.
Holy cow! He's only doing what we asked him to do; the liberals
can't attack us directly, so they go after our designated hit-man.
We can't come right out and say it, of course, but damn it, Bolton
needs to be at the U.N., laying wood when votes are needed in favor
of military action against Iran and/or Syria. We can't trust a real
diplomat; we need a hard-nosed Bush loyalist, a take-no-prisoners
PNAC graduate like ol' Mad Dog, as he's known affectionately here.
TURNING FILIBUSTER DEFEAT INTO VICTORY
Dumping the filibuster was an absolutely necessary move for our
upcoming Supreme Court appointments. But did win a kind-of victory
with the arranged "compromise."
This way we get our three most objectionable judges (Owen, Brown,
Pryor) confirmed to the appellate courts, and we'll then accuse
the Dems of breaking the agreement the minute they start anything
that smells like obstructionism, thus permitting us to return to
the nuke option in eliminating the filibuster just prior to the
Supreme Court vote. In short, the Dems won't know what hit 'em.
(Note to self: apparently, McCain - who engineered the filibuster
"compromise" - has forgotten the lessons we delivered to him in
South Carolina in 2000; one of these days, he may wake up with a
horse's head in his bed.)
HOW SOCIAL SECURITY "REFORM" WILL COME
Speaking of the obtuseness of our Dem opponents, they're still
oblivious about why we keep the Prez plugging away on the hustings
for our Social Security "reforms" when three-quarters of the American
people think we're wrong and should drop the topic. (But why on
earth did our Dim Son come right out and say that he was touring
the country mouthing the same thing over and over in order to "catapult
the propaganda"? That man needs some Super-Glue lip gloss. I should
get combat pay for my babysitting duties.)
You'd think the Dems would have figured out by now why we're still
flogging Social Security all over the country. Think about it. We
got everything we wanted after 9/11; all we had to do was say some
bill was essential for "national security" or to "stop terrorists."
So... we'll keep slogging away at Social Security reform, and when
the next major "event" happens, either inside the U.S. or if we
are "forced" once again to attack another country, we slide that
Social Security baby right through a frightened Congress. It'll
be easy: those politicians are terrified of being termed "soft on
terrorism" or "unpatriotic" if they don't support the Commander-in-Chief
during "wartime."
As we've proved during the past four years, being in a state of
permanent war means we can do most anything as long as we somehow
tie it to the magic word "terrorism." Although, I must say that
it's not quite as easy as it used to be. 9/11 was a long time ago,
and people tend to forget how frightened they once were. Maybe the
public needs periodic booster-shots. Hmm.
(Note to myself: Make sure Ridge is punished for spilling the
beans about our hyped-up "terror alerts" prior to the election;
all he had to do was keep his mouth shut after he resigned, but
no, he's out there revealing the way we manipulated the populace
with those phony alerts to keep them scared and eager for us to
protect them.)
IRAQ WAR IMPLOSIONS ARE DANGEROUS
Now we get to a possible real vulnerable point. The goddamn war
in Iraq. Not the war per se, as the fact that the traitorous media
is revealing all sorts of things that were not meant for public
exposure. Like how the Army has found that the Koran was indeed
abused badly at Gitmo, urinated on, stepped on, defaced and so on;
now we look ridiculous for making Newsweek stand in the corner and
apologize for saying pretty much the same thing we're admitting.
(Lucky for us Newsweek did a Rather and got a sourcing fact wrong.)
Sure, we want our interrogators at Gitmo and elsewhere to "break"
those prisoners, by whatever means are required, but why can't the
goddamn military keep their troops disciplined, by which I mean
silent? Now the word's out and we're catching hell all over the
globe. Thank God, there aren't any photos or videos of such behavior!
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch and the Red Cross
and so on are all making a big stink about how we've turned into
the Soviets and Nazis by mistreating, abusing, torturing and humiliating
prisoners - even hiding some of them, "ghosting" them, from the
designated international observers.
I wish we could come right out and just say it: "Yes, we have
done all that, in our own little gulags; what are you going to do
about it? These are killers and we need to keep them off the streets
by whatever means necessary, including killing the worst ones if
we have to, and disrespecting their holy book in order to make them
know who's boss."
Instead, we have to deny all and feign outrage, denouncing the
messenger, as usual, without confronting the message head-on. Oh
well, such is politics in a politically-correct age.
But Rumsfeld and Cheney are almost worse than Dim Bulb; in recent
days, each has made a terrible Freudian slip in calling the Gitmo
detainees "prisoners of war," a big mistake since our whole policy
for their not falling under Geneva Convention protections is that
they are not POWs but "enemy combatants." Get back in line, fellas.
DOWNING STREET "SMOKING GUN" MEMO
The bad news is that the torture/Koran issue is melding with the
revelations in the Downing Street Memo - that both Blair and Bush
were engaged in a conspiracy to fool our respective citizens into
believing that we in the Administration were truly interested in
a diplomatic solution when the decision to attack Iraq actually
had been made nearly a year before the invasion.
And when you add to that "smoking gun" the growth and sophistication
of the insurgent forces in Iraq, and the increasing threat of ethnic
civil strife erupting in that country, the Iraq War and our handling
of it could build to critical mass in the public mind. The might
even be willing to consider that maybe the U.S. should bug out of
there stat. Can't have that now, can we?
RETURN OF THE "I" WORD
Given that liberal journalists are constantly bringing up the
Administration's so-called sins of commission and omission, it's
not surprising that the "I" word is starting to be bandied about
again, as it was when Abu Ghraib broke. I don't think we need worry
ourselves about impeachment during this second term - our GOP friends
will hang tight in the Congress, even if they despise us; they know
on which side their political bread is buttered, and will do nothing
to harm their own holds on power and influence.
But there is a growing rumble out there, and not just from disgruntled
and angry Democrats, that we in the Administration have grown too
big for our britches and are taking the country way too far to the
right - and "incompetently" at that - and need to be reined in.
We sure did get our asses whupped by bowing to the fundamentalists
in the Schiavo fiasco; and the House and Senate both passed funding
bills for highway projects and stem-cell research despite the threat
of a presidential veto - not good signs.)
Most importantly, the Dems are chomping at the bit to initiate
impeachment hearings, especially over Iraq and how we got there,
but, unless the public suddenly gets stirred up to take action against
us in a big way - not bloody likely, as they're willing to let us
do anything as long as we keep them safe - I think we can weather
the storm.
Hell, our role-model here should be Tom DeLay; the liberals have
nearly got the noose around his neck and can't wait for the lynching
to start, but The Hammer keeps pounding, and confounding, his critics.
Hang in there, Tom! (Whoops, bad choice of words.)
But what about after 2008? Unless Jeb or another leader we can
count on is elected, we still might have to worry about facing criminal,
civil and international war-crimes charges associated with our eight
years of rule. Can't let that happen.
Gotta talk to Poppy and Jeb - and Wally over at Diebold.
Bernard Weiner, Ph.D., has taught politics and international
relations at various universities, worked as a writer/editor with
the San Francisco Chronicle, and currently co-edits The
Crisis Papers. Send comments to crisispapers@comcast.net.
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