Karl Rove

Redstate notes that "Cheney Warned Of Iraq 'Quagmire'":

I don't know what to say. Maybe something like I hate it when he's right? I don't think Iraq is a quagmire. Progress is being made. So much so that even the New York Times had to acknowledged it and there is talk of some Democrats being worried about facing a voter backlash for pandering to the left wing defeatists.
I was speaking with a Marine Master Sargent last week. He was getting ready for his second deployment to Iraq. Asked what he thought of our efforts he said He has 25 years in the Corps, looking to make it 30, he expects he will have three more Iraq tours. He thought for a moment and said 'we just need more time. You have to give us more time.'
The problem with Cheney's use of the q-word is that ever since we gave up in Vietnam, quagmire equates to failure in our political lexicon. We have not failed in Iraq, not yet, regardless of what the Democrats and the main stream media say. Another problem is that we can't look at the post-9/11 world through pre-9/11 lenses. September 11th changed everything.

Did September 11th change anything but the level of fear-mongering by the right? I'm still waiting for someone to explain how 9/11 changed anything fundamental about our strategic security. Yeah it was scary, but was it "throw out the Constitution" scary? Blitzkrieg in Poland changed everything. Pearl Harbor changed everything. The assassination of Archduke Ferdinand changed everything. The "shot heard 'round the world" changed everything.

But did the mass-murderous fanaticism of 19 criminal skyjackers change everything? Or did it just change us?

Karl Rove's departure announcement comes while we as a country wrestle with the utter debacle that he helped create: the violent occupation of Iraq. It was our ill-intentioned, ill-conceived and woefully ineptly executed invasion and occupation of Iraq, not 9/11, that changed everything. It was our polarization of the world by an administration hell-bent on destroying Saddam Hussein, the man who betrayed the oil men (and let's all now remember all those photos of Saddam shaking hands with American "statesmen"), that changed everything.

It is the continuing state of the State of Iraq that has changed everything. Iraq, which had nothing to do with 9/11. (Hello? Is anyone on the right keeping their ears unplugged?)

This isn't about party. Most of the Democrats in Washington are culpable in enabling the worst foreign policy blunder in America's history, too. This is about bringing America back to the good fight, the smart play, the leadership role in the world -- leading by example, not by sending our finest fighting men and women into neighborhoods to establish democracy at the point of a gun, not by keeping our soldiers and Marines (and as many, if not more, private "contractors") in those neighborhoods with the impossible mission of policing a civil war.

Meanwhile the guy behind the attacks that supposedly "changed everything" -- Osama bin Laden, remember him? -- where is he? "Oh, don't talk about him. Al-Qaeda is in Iraq!" the right cries a cappella. Yeah, some of them are. I wonder why.

The right seems to be obsessed with appearing strong rather than being strong. While the mission of the war on Iraq and the definition of "victory" remain terribly vague, what's becoming quite clear is that this war has become a point of pride for the fragile ego of the modern American conservative.

Conservatism once stood for small government and balanced budgets. Conservatism once opposed "nation building." Conservatism once fought for civil liberties. No longer.

The takeover of the Republican Party by the neocons and "holy rollers" (as Victor Gold calls them) -- that changed everything.

Members of the Beltway press are big on sneering at "the blogs." Amateurs, they say. We tell the people what's important, they say.

But then we see this:

White House adviser Karl Rove boogied, backed by NBC's David Gregory, Brian Wiliams burped the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" and the President cracked wise, all to the general delight, and occasional gales of laughter, of journalists gathered for the Radio & Television Correspondents Association dinner in Washington.

Rove was a better sport than a dancer, tapped by the surprise entertainment--Whose Line is It Anyway's Colin Mochrie and Brad Sherwood--for an improv rap number featuring "MC Rove," with Gregory as one of his backup dancers, and based on information supplied by Rove that, among other things, he collected stamps and liked to "tear the tops" off of small animals.

Rove got into the spirit of the bit, though when President Bush was asked to supply a rap nickname for Rove, his response was "Your Fired!" Sherwood then suggested Rove had offered his resume to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, one of a host of legislators in attendance at the annual dinner at the Washington Hilton.

...and wonder why they wonder why we bloggers turn a jaundiced eye towards their coverage of Washington. How many stories got press attention only because bloggers pushed it? Would we even be talking about the Justice Department fiasco if a blogger had not raked for coals?

Keep belching, Mr. Williams. Very dignified behavior for our "professional" fourth estate.

I'm struck by today's news that President Bush has designated an ecological treasure that's underwater a national monument. You can bet they made sure there was no oil there.

Also oh so ironic: Justice Antonin Scalia's Supreme Court majority opinion today that uses all sorts of ends-justify-means rationalizations to undermine a key provision of the Fourth Amendment. Scalia has just redefined judicial activism. To hell with the law -- and forget all that Founding Fathers crap -- just look at all my good reasons why we should ignore the law -- just look at the police academy!

At least the Republicans in Congress were in their usual self-righteous form today, using cheap rhetoric to try to score political points while doing everything to avoid talking about the disaster in Iraq. A lot of peacock feathers there.

In case you missed it on Wednesday, Zbigniew Brzezinski on the NewsHour [video | mp3]addressed what the Republicans won't:

Well, the president opened his press conference by make a statement, which I suspect most Americans didn't quite fully interpret correctly. This is what he said: "I have just returned from Baghdad. I was inspired to be able to visit the capital of a free and democratic Iraq."

[Holds up a map of Iraq, with a small dot on it.]

Now, this is what the president actually visited. This is an aerial map of Baghdad and, within it, the viewers can see a small spot. That is the so-called Green Zone, a fortified American fortress housing the American embassy, the American high command, and all the major institutions of the Iraqi, as he said, free and democratic government, in an American fortress....

And then, last but not least is the fact that the so-called Iraqi government, three years after the beginning of the occupation, still sits in an American fortress. It cannot venture outside of it. To call it a government is to misuse the word "government."...
[W]e have to get rid of the mindset, which is really by now totally ahistorical -- we no longer live in the age of colonialism. We no longer have to assume "the white man's burden" in order to civilize others, and I'm using these phrases in quotation marks....
Well, how many thousands of Iraqis will die in the meantime? How many hundreds, how many thousands of Americans will die in the meantime?

How much will our prestige internationally decline? How many billions of dollars will we spend on this?
Good questions. Questions the Republicans don't even want to ask, let alone answer.

But I'm sure the newly non-indicted Karl Rove will come up with some good anger points to turn citizen against citizen. Nothing stirs up the ire of the GOP like American citizens.

When it comes to anything relating to international relations and security, nobody can accuse the president of playing a game of Risk. That would take nuance. No, Mr. Bush is a simpler man -- a "decider"!

And he likes to play with his army men.

Anyone who knows anyone in the military, whatever his or her political views, knows that our armed forces are what you might call over-extended. We have soldiers and Marines, young and old, serving multiple tours of duty in Iraq. We have people long retired who've been called back to help the United States follow a foreign policy with no real plan, no sense of strategy, and certainly no intelligence (except for, of course, what they glean from tapping your phone).

Now President Bush is facing criticism from the xenophobic wing (or is it the core?) of the Republican Party regarding immigration policy.

So what is the president thinking of deciding to do?

Send in the National Guard.

One defense official said military leaders believe the number of troops required could range from 3,500 to 10,000, depending on the final plan. Another administration official cautioned that the 10,000 figure was too high.

The officials insisted on anonymity since no decision has been announced.

The president was expected to reveal his plans in an address Monday at 8 p.m. EDT. It will be the first time he has used the Oval Office for a domestic policy speech — a gesture intended to underscore the importance he places on the divisive immigration issue.

The key questions Friday were exactly how many National Guard troops might be deployed, for how long and at what cost to taxpayers — as well as the problem of possible disruption of upcoming deployments to Iraq and elsewhere overseas.Welcome home, soldier! You survived Baghdad! Congratulations! Now get your butt into that Hummer and report for duty on the Mexican border! There are more brown people there to keep in line!

So is this really about national security? Not likely:
Southern lawmakers met with White House strategist Karl Rove earlier in the week for a discussion that included making greater use of National Guard troops to shore up border control.
Ah! The Architect is hard at work! No wonder the GOP is busy trying to whip up fear and anger. Funny that, in the name of defense and national security, they aren't talking about sending armies to the Canadian border, where terrorists have been crossing. I wonder why that is....

Der Spiegel seems to think so:

The most talked about story is a Dec. 23 piece by the German news agency DDP from journalist and intelligence expert Udo Ulfkotte. The story has generated controversy not only because of its material, but also because of the reporter's past. Critics allege that Ulfkotte in his previous reporting got too close to sources at Germany's foreign intelligence agency, the BND. But Ulfkotte has himself noted that he has been under investigation by the government in the past (indeed, his home and offices have been searched multiple times) for allegations that he published state secrets -- a charge that he claims would underscore rather than undermine the veracity of his work.

According to Ulfkotte's report, "western security sources" claim that during CIA Director Porter Goss' Dec. 12 visit to Ankara, he asked Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to provide support for a possibile 2006 air strike against Iranian nuclear and military facilities. More specifically, Goss is said to have asked Turkey to provide unfettered exchange of intelligence that could help with a mission.

DDP also reported that the governments of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Oman and Pakistan have been informed in recent weeks of Washington's military plans. The countries, apparently, were told that air strikes were a "possible option," but they were given no specific timeframe for the operations.

This doesn't look good. Apparently Bush the Lesser seems to think he can do what Ronald Reagan and Daddy couldn't do back in 1981, when the Iranian regime was new and had been holding American hostages. President Reagan, who at that time was something of a reckless cowboy when it came to foreign policy, opted to trade arms for hostages during his election rather than launch a military assault after his inaugural.

But let's look at what's quite possibly the real reason such an attack is being contemplated: Bush is "the wartime president," according to his political image, and we all know that when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. War is what Bush does. He seems to like it.

And I'm sure Karl Rove is pushing hard for this option. Nothing like exploiting international conflict for domestic political gain in an election year!

Sources in German security circles told the DDP reporter that Goss had ensured Ankara that the Turkish government would be informed of any possible air strikes against Iran a few hours before they happened. The Turkish government has also been given the "green light" to strike camps of the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in Iran on the day in question.

The DDP report attributes the possible escalation to the recent anti-Semitic rants by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose belligerent verbal attacks on Israel (he described the Holocaust as a "myth" and called for Israel to be "wiped off the map") have strengthened the view of the American government that, in the case of the nuclear dispute, there's little likelihood Tehran will back down and that the mullahs are just attempting to buy time by continuing talks with the Europeans.

If Bush wants to divide the world more completely, I can't think of a more effective way of doing so. Unfortunately, over the past year we've seen parades of military experts on the various cable and network news shows explaining how the Iranians have dug in so deep and hardened their facilities so much that even a nuclear ground strike could not guarantee success.

Let's hope "God" doesn't tell Bush to launch nukes. Everyone, pray for Bush to hear calmer voices in his head.

Even if it weren't a nuclear attack, going into Iran would be a horrible mistake. Iran is a sophisticated society, with a long-established middle class, education and literacy rates that rank highly even by Western standards, deep suspicion and wariness of its neighbors, and an historical legacy that goes back to ancient Persia. If Bush gets a bug up his ass about lunatic rhetoric from the mullah minority that temporarily controls Iran, and does something stupid, it will only unite the people behind the vastly unpopular government and make real change there all the less likely.

Peaceful, "orange revolutions" have been more successful so far -- in the Ukraine, of course, and possibly in Lebanon. Alas, there's no way for Karl Rove to wait for something similar to happen in Iran. They need something quickly. Something flashy. Something that pushes Abramoff and Iraq and Osama bin Laden and the spiraling national debt and the deepening poverty in our own country off the front page, and gives the cable news networks a new war to sell.

Talk about wag the dog!

[via Talk Left. Now also on Raw Story.]