Karl — the comic relief [sorta]

August 9th, 2007

Turd Blossom has been keeping a low profile since his Decider-in-Chief protected him from those nasty “politicized” Congressional subpoenas — but we haven’t forgotten about him. Here’s a short, fun post — a great little video clip, take off on Harry Potter starring Jason Alexander as Rovemort, Dark Lord of Congressional Wizzle … take a moment, it’s pretty good. Then Bernard Weiner gives us a faux diary entry for the little pudge. Last, a sad article about Pappy Bush, who is allowed to take a little nosh with TB from time to time, pass a little gossip … a little gas.

For your amusement — Bush’s brain. [Almost] funny.

Jude

Rovemort
Video w/ Jason Alexander

Rove’s Diary: Just Try to Stop Me, Coppers!
Bernard Weiner, The Crisis Papers
August 7, 2007

Dear Diary:

For many months, I’ve felt like the little silver ball in a pinball machine, getting banged around this way and that, about to fall into a dark hole. My subpoena, the U.S. Attorneys scandal, our political briefings at Justice and so on — they almost had me cornered. But today I feel like the pinball machine, back in control of all the levers and balls.

I had just about run out of fresh ideas for how we can hang on through January 2009. And then it hit me: Who needs fresh ideas when our old tried-and-true formula can still be made work? You want me, coppers? — just try to come get me. It’s you who will suffer; we’re steaming ahead, get out of our way — or else.

Since the Democrats don’t have the balls to impeach us, or cut off funding for the Iraq War, that means they’re still scared and therefore easily rollable. They’re terrified of what we would do to them in the 2008 election (”unpatriotic,” “soft on terrorism”) if they challenged us frontally like that.

Of course, we’re going to do that to them anyway, but they don’t see that, or don’t want to see. What I can tell is that, even in the majority now, they’re still frightened little puppydogs who can be counted on to back down when it really counts — especially on the war and on expanding our domestic police powers.

Impeachment “off the table”? Thank you, Madame Speaker. You’ve just let us pass Go as often as we like, collect the $200 each time, and hang onto a permanent Get Out of Jail card. Thank God! Even just the existence of an impeachment panel — since it’s pretty certain the Senate would not convict — would derail many of our initiatives, forcing us to devote most of our time and energy on playing defense, not our strongest suit.

THE DEMOCRATS CAVE AGAIN, HURRAH

Who would of thunk it last week? First the Dem senators rough up “Fredo” in their hearings, calling him unqualified and a liar, and then a few days later OK more domestic spying with Gonzales in ultimate charge. I love it!

And the Dems in the House likewise. They kicked and screamed about Gonzo being in charge and the civil liberties aspects of the bill, but enough of them went along anyway, pretending no major damage done since the bill will be re-examined in six months. Ha.

They wanted to get home to their states and districts for a month’s vacation and some electioneering, and they figure they’ve inoculated themselves on the “patriotic” issue for the 2008 election. Boy, have they got another thing coming.

I DON’T HAVE TO SHOW YOU NO STINKIN’ RULES

It’s as true now as it was six years ago when we invented our approach: The Dems are clueless about how to stop us. They’re used to playing by the rules, getting along to go along, compromising to get things done, democratic niceties, etc. But we don’t operate that way. That way lies namby-pamby, always worrying about who not to offend. You think like that and your agenda gets bogged down in the reality-world.

It’s much more effective to rev up the old rammer, hit ‘em and hit ‘em hard, grab what we can get, full-scale smashmouth politics, call their bluff, demonize them, cut ‘em off at the knees, rub their noses in their powerlessness, find their weak points and go for the jugular, take their strong points and demolish them. You’d think after six years, the hapless Dems would have figured all this out by now, but they still stand there like deer in the middle of the road, mesmerized by the headlights of our power and ruthlessness. God, I love this job!

On the other hand, it’s possible that the Dems have figured out our approach, but they’re just total wusses. “Oh, please don’t hit me again, Mr. Rove. Ouch! Oh, please don’t hit me again. Ouch! I promise we’ll be good little boys and girls. Ouch! We’re in the majority now, so if you do that one more time, we’ll, we’ll, we’ll…do something. Ouch! Oh, please don’t hit me again.” Etc. Etc. It’s wackamole time!

Of course, our enemies are just itching to get me. Their proxy on the white horse, Patrick Fitzgerald, thought he might be able to put the political noose around my neck, but I played the Plame game with finesse, “corrected” my testimony and all he had left was poor little Scooter. The jury convicted him, but we took care to make sure Scooter would never feel tempted to talk to get out of prison. Of course, the Dems howled like banshees about Bush’s commutation of his sentence but (surprise!) took no retribution and quickly moved on to the next topic.

The Dems thought they’d found some traction in the U.S. Attorneys scandal and our partisan briefings in the various government departments, but they couldn’t pin us down in testimony with any actionable lies, so we got off there, too. Of course, I and the other key players won’t testify — “executive privilege” is a handy little escape-hatch, ain’t it? — and the Dems can issue all the “contempt of Congress” citations they want, but they won’t get me, or us. Our hold on the U.S. Attorneys and on the courts — and Bush’s pardon power — will make sure of that.

FREE TO ROAM UNTIL 2009

In short, we’re good to go for another 16 months. And, if things somehow go spinning out of control and it looks like we may be facing political or criminal jeopardy or a landslide defeat of the GOP at the polls, some “imminent” act of terror might “require” us to declare martial law, postpone the election, and rule by decree for awhile. Let them suck on that one!

We’ll wrap ourselves in the old red, white & blue and control the scenario where we are the only force standing between the American people and bloodthirsty terrorists. The confused, frightened populace, at least enough of them, will come to believe that we are protecting them and let us do what we want. Those who cause trouble and interfere with our rule will be dealt with; a few symbolic radicals thrown into prison would probably get the message across effectively. But who for starters? Michael Moore? Cindy Sheehan? Joe Wilson? If it was up to me (and guess what? it IS!), I’d opt for that trifecta as appetizers.

But I don’t think we’ll really have to go the marital-law route. Even though California is quickly moving in the direction of requiring verified paper ballots for the 2008 election, and a few other states may follow suit, our friends still control most of the computer-tabulating of the votes, regardless of how the ballots are cast. And we still can have tens and hundreds of thousands of likely Dem voters purged from the rolls in competitive districts.

With most of our fundamentalist base firmly in place, and with our various election maneuvers, and with fear still operative in the population, it’s possible that we can manage to regain either the House or the Senate. And, if the Dems swallow the bait and choose Hillary as our opponent, we could conceivably hold onto the Presidency as well.

It’s a long shot, diary, I grant you — especially because a lot of name-Republicans have abandoned the GOP ship in the face of popular revulsion against our administration — but the Boy Genius loves a challenge. I will bring enough GOP faithful back into the fold to eke out a victory for our side. The new Republican President will pardon all of us — in order to “move the country” forward, away from tit-for-tat “partisan wrangling” — and the people, so tired of all the bickering and sniping, will buy it.

THE FLY IN THE OINTMENT

The one thing that could go wrong is Iraq. Even though we can assert that the war on the ground is easing up in certain areas where we’ve front-loaded American troops, the political civil war is spinning out of control, and the reconstruction projects are a disaster, with hardly any water or electricity getting to the people. This is dangerous news for us.

We’ll probably have to engineer a replacement for al-Maliki, who is to governance what a fish is to a bicycle. Petraeus, who is dependent on our favors, will give us six more months after September — he’ll report that there is some good “progress” on the ground and the new Iraqi government “deserves a chance” to succeed — and we’ll try to get six or eight more months after that to take us through the election campaign. Petraeus then can join al-Maliki among the fall-guys when the war is lost. Joining the scapegoat list will be the Democrats, of course, who didn’t “support the troops” and thus stabbed our war effort in the back. Certainly, we in the Bush Administration are not going to be caught anywhere near that humiliating defeat.

Domestically, we’ll consolidate our power base inside the government and take care of our enemies outside, if you get my drift. The Dems certainly have helped give us the enormous police powers that make our job such fun. We’re always two steps ahead of them, and, surprisingly, they haven’t put two and two together as to why we always know how to block their next move.

Gotta run. I’m rehearsing another rap number for a You Tube ad against the Democrats. It’s called “Lie Back and Enjoy It, Bee-itch.”

First Father: Tough Times on Sidelines
SHERYL GAY STOLBERG, New York Times
August 9, 2007

WASHINGTON, Aug. 8 — There are times in the life of George Herbert Walker Bush, the 41st president of the United States and father of the 43rd, that people, perfect strangers, come up to him and say the harshest things — words intended to comfort but words that wind up only causing pain.

“I love you, sir, but your son’s way off base here,” they might say, according to Ron Kaufman, a longtime adviser to Mr. Bush, who has witnessed any number of such encounters — perhaps at a political fund-raiser, or a restaurant dinner, a chance meeting on the streets of Houston or Kennebunkport, Me. They are, he says, just one way the presidency of the son has taken a toll on the father.

“It wears on his heart,” Mr. Kaufman said, “and his soul.”

These are distressing days for the Bush family patriarch, only the second former president in American history, after John Adams, to see his son take the White House. At 83, he finds it tough to watch his son get criticized from the sidelines; often, he likens himself to a Little League father whose kid is having a rough game. And like the proud and angry Little League dad who cannot help but yell at the umpire, sometimes he just cannot help getting involved.

The official line from the White House is that 41, as he is known in Bush circles, gives advice to 43 only when asked. But interviews with a broad range of people close to both presidents — including family members like the elder Mr. Bush’s daughter, Doro Bush Koch, and aides who have worked for both men, like Andrew H. Card Jr. — suggest a far more complicated father-son dynamic, in which the former president is not nearly so distant as the White House would have people believe.

They talk almost every morning by phone, and Mr. Bush studiously avoids saying anything critical of his son, close associates say. But he has privately expressed irritation with some of his son’s aides. At times, he has urged White House officials to seek outside advice, and he has passed on his own foreign policy wisdom to the president, even as he makes a point of saying his son’s administration is not his.

He views himself, in Mrs. Koch’s words, as “a loving father, first and foremost,” but as he himself suggested to a group of insurance agents at a recent dinner in Minneapolis, loving fathers find it tough to stay away.

“Any parent in this audience knows exactly how I feel,” Mr. Bush said in response to a question about what it was like to have a son as president. “It’s no different. You’ve got to look at it strictly as family — not that anyone is a big shot, even though he’s president of the United States. It’s family. It’s the pride of a father in his son.”

This weekend, the elder Mr. Bush will preside over his clan’s annual summer gathering at Walker’s Point, their grand seaside spread in Kennebunkport. There will be the usual horseshoe games, fishing trips and speedboat rides, plus a visit from the president of France, Nicolas Sarkozy — a classic Bush family tableau, but one that does not capture the delicate course the elder Mr. Bush has charted in playing the roles of father and former president at the same time.

It is a balancing act. The former president keeps up his contacts with world leaders — last year, for instance, he invited President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan to spend a night at Kennebunkport — but is discreet. Once, during an intimate dinner with the king of Morocco, he called the White House and got the president on the phone.

“He put the king on, just like that,” one startled guest recalled. “No national security advisers, no nothing, just the president talking with the king of Morocco.”

He is a frequent visitor to the White House. He still loves eating at the White House mess and has breakfast or coffee with Karl Rove, the president’s chief political strategist, whenever he comes, mostly to chew over political gossip. From time to time, he picks up the phone to talk policy with Joshua B. Bolten, the White House chief of staff. He called Mr. Bolten’s predecessor, Mr. Card, about every other week.

Mostly, said Mr. Card, who was transportation secretary to the elder Mr. Bush and views himself as “a bridge” between the generations, the father was simply checking on his son. But sometimes the ex-president would raise a foreign policy question, or suggest the White House reach out to those “in his circle,” like James A. Baker, the former secretary of state, or Brent Scowcroft, the former national security adviser, who has been openly critical of the war in Iraq.

“He made sure that I knew there were experts around that we should be reaching out to or listening to,” Mr. Card said, adding: “I never felt that the former president was trying to meddle in the responsibilities that the president had. But he cares deeply about his son.”

Recently, the White House has cast the elder Mr. Bush in a new role as foreign policy facilitator. In addition to the coming Sarkozy visit, the former president was host to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia at Kennebunkport for a White House summit meeting in June. It was the current president’s idea, but the father was happy to return Mr. Putin’s hospitality; a few years ago, when he and his wife, Barbara, were traveling in Russia, the Putins met them at the airport and invited them to their country retreat.

In a sense, the elder Mr. Bush is traversing uncharted territory. The first President Adams died 18 months after John Quincy Adams was inaugurated, and 28 years separated their administrations. By contrast, just eight years separate the Bush administrations, and the men themselves are only 22 years apart in age.

Their relationship is undoubtedly the most scrutinized father-son bond in Washington, especially given the well-publicized foreign policy rifts between their two camps.

Tensions between aides to 41 and 43 ran especially high when Mr. Baker was co-chairman of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group. When President Bush rejected the group’s recommendations, some in the 41 camp viewed it as an outright rejection of the father. When Mr. Scowcroft spoke out against the war, some thought the father was sending a message to the son.

Some authors have asserted that there is rivalry between the two; the journalist Bob Woodward, for instance, reported in his book “Plan of Attack” that when asked if he sought his father’s advice before going to war, the president said: “You know he is the wrong father to appeal to in terms of strength. There is a higher father that I appeal to.”

The rivalry theory flared up again last year, at the christening of the Navy’s newest Nimitz aircraft carrier, the George H. W. Bush. The president joked that given the ship’s qualities — “she is unrelenting, she is unshakeable, she is unyielding” — it should have been named for his mother. The line brought a laugh, but some close to the elder Mr. Bush winced at what seemed a subtle dig.

Despite the armchair psychologists who speculate about Oedipal complexes and prodigal sons, father and son are described as extremely close. When the clan is in Kennebunkport, all the Bush children, the president included, stream into their parents’ bedroom at the crack of dawn for coffee. When the president is not there, the other Bushes call.

Bob Strauss, the onetime chairman of the Democratic National Committee and close friend of the elder Mr. Bush from their days in Texas, was recently invited to dinner with both men at the White House. He says he worried in advance that there might be tension, or that they might talk politics, creating discomfort for a Democrat like himself.

But, he said, there was none of that. “They talked about West Texas, they talked about family,” he said. “It couldn’t have been more relaxed.”

As to what is said in private conversations between father and son, no one can be certain. When phone calls come in from Houston or Kennebunkport, White House aides make themselves scarce. But Mr. Card says it is clear to him that family talks were not always confined to family matters.

“It was relatively easy for me to read the sitting president’s body language after he had talked to his mother or father,” Mr. Card said. “Sometimes he’d ask me a probing question. And I’d think, Hmm, I don’t think that question came from him.”

The former president is often asked how he steers clear of second-guessing his son, and his answer is always the same: that he is not qualified to second-guess because only the occupant of the Oval Office has complete access to the kind of intelligence reports that inform presidential decisions.

Even so, those close to the former president say it is clear that the father has been dissatisfied with the performance of some of his son’s aides, notably Donald H. Rumsfeld, the former secretary of defense.

“I think it is accurate to say that there’s a feeling that a lot of the aides around him have not served the president well — Rumsfeld is one,” said one person close to the elder Mr. Bush who, like all interviewed on this topic, spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Nearly 15 years have passed since the first President Bush left the White House, and though he remains vigorous — he jumped out of an airplane on his 80th birthday and is promising another jump when he turns 85 — he has also slowed down. After two hip replacements, his gait is a little unsteady. He does not wade in streams anymore, and in Kennebunkport, he now uses a ramp to get on his boat.

His children worry about him. Last December, at an event honoring his son Jeb in his last days as Florida’s governor, the elder Mr. Bush broke down crying at the memory of Jeb’s bitter defeat in 1994. Mrs. Koch says her father is growing more emotional as he ages — “he has a tender heart that is getting tenderer” — which makes criticism of his eldest son that much harder to take.

Late last year, at the aircraft carrier christening, he grew emotional again, this time with President Bush in his presence. Before a crowd that included political luminaries from both administrations, as well as dozens of family members and friends, the father made a point of saying he supports his son “in every single way with every fiber of my body.”

The words were intentional, said his longtime speechwriter, Jim McGrath, who wrote them.

“I think he understood he was going to have a national audience, and I think he wanted to send an unmistakable signal,” Mr. McGrath said. “There had been a couple of these kind of pop psychology pieces — you know, the father, is he trying to send a message? I think he wanted to say none of that malarkey matters. I just want to support my son.”

“So keep fightin’ for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don’t you forget to have fun doin’ it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin’ ass and celebratin’ the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.”
~ Molly Ivins, 1944 - 2007

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