NOTE: this blog is no longer active as of 12/07. New one: http://blog.kirchhof.com
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
Fri, 04 Nov 2005
Rove vs. Weighed
Was just reading my daily dose of the always interesting Marshall
Wittman blog; today is a good read, but here's my take.
They may be right. But my gut tells me that the Republican party won't
be able to get a dogcatcher elected for at least a couple of election
cycles after this has played out. We're not even to the seventh inning
stretch of this scandal series. Hell, we're in the third
inning. Slate's Weisberg makes some interesting points, but I think
that he's being a bit over-optimistic.
To my mind, there's another calculus at work here: Rove doesn't have
the toolset for this situation. He is an expert at demolition, not a
general contractor. Combined with the nascent attention of the
American People to his techniques -- the lies, the smears, the
Orwellian double-speak, the staged photo-ops, the crab-walks, the bait
& switches, the cherry-picking, the absurd sloganeering and
triumphalism -- well, this is going to be a very rough ride. Bush
doesn't look "manly" talking to troops/old folks/cameras these days;
he looks like the silly and small and incompetent little trust fund
frat rat that he is. They don't like those kind of people in Peoria.
If McCain wants to be the reformer-in-chief, he'd be well advised to
quit the Republican party, asap. The alternative for him would seem to
be -- to my eye, anyway -- the political equivalent of chief engineer
on the Titanic. Sure, he can get the nomination -- it's his turn, for
real -- but nomination for what? Historical laughingstock? The new
Alf Landon? The party's *current* negatives are almost as bad as
POTUS, and they will not be getting any good news, at all, for quite a
long time. Maybe they'll be able to push through a resolution saying
that "rainbows are pretty" between now and the election next
year. Maybe.
Rove's Seventh Circle of Hell has arrived: an engaged alert
electorate, increasingly on to him, exactly when his horse goes
lame. And the party that has been so obsequious to his every outrage
for five years, dutifully mouthing every talking point, is effectively
welded to POTUS now. Hell, we can run a successful opposition campaign
based solely on "Meet the Press" video clips at this point. And that,
sadly, includes McCain's. Rove is what we in the geekery business call
a "single point of failure", e.g. the one place that can take the
whole operation off line. And as far as I can tell, there's never been
a plan "b." Additionally, and happily, Reid and the Dems are actually
growing some testicles, right on time. Strange, but welcome nonetheless.
Napoleon Bonaparte had some good advice that Rove somehow managed
to miss: "You must not fight too often with one enemy, or you will
teach him all your art of war."
It's becoming a marvelous time to be an intelligent, proudly
progressive, fiscally conservative and socially moderate liberal. But
we have more than a few of those already available, and the line forms
to the rear.
Tell you what. The Republicans can have the dogcatcher positions; I
wouldn't want to be totally unreasonable. To paraphrase and extend my
wise friend Mary: "Vote for Democratic politicians, Libertarian judges,
and Republican tax assessors."
Posted at 13:22 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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It's A Big Ad
The coolest, funniest, most self-referential beer ad in the history
of the art. For Carlton Draught, from down under. Quicktime here.
Posted at 11:57 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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Tomlinson Is Out
From the Post:
Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, who sparked controversy by asserting that
programs carried by public broadcasters have a liberal bias, resigned
yesterday from the board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting a
day after the agency's inspector general delivered a report apparently
critical of his leadership.
Tomlinson, a staunch conservative who was CPB's chairman until
September, brought unprecedented attention to his agency by publicly
criticizing the alleged political favoritism of news programs,
primarily those carried by the Public Broadcasting Service. CPB wields
great influence over public radio and TV stations through its
distribution of about $400 million in federal funding each year.
I know that this isn't on everyone's radar screen, but it's
exceedingly good news. And there's no political power available to
shoehorn another ideological hack to fill the position. You can take NPR off of
the endangered species list for now.
Posted at 10:39 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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Genuinely Nixonian
37% approval and falling. Great
graphic here.
Something that I don't see anyone saying: this is going to be very
hard to for Bush/Rove to pull out of. The American people sometimes are slow to
comprehend, but when they do, they stay. They now see the dirty
tricks, the stupid photo ops, the Orwellian doublespeak (e.g.,. "Clear
Skies Initiative", "Healthy Forests Initiative") and the genuine
ineptitude of Clown In Chief. Rove has no toolbox to deal with this;
he only knows how to destroy. All of his tactics are beginning to
produce negative results, and I for one am watching gleefully.
A bunch of criminals. Nothing more. And they are destroying the
Washington establishment and the Republican party, right on time, as
predicted.
Good.
Posted at 10:02 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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