White House: Don't cry over Rove

Often called “Bush’s brain” (how insulting is that?) Karl Rove has long been the indispensable man to the Republican faithful. He has been to Bush what steroids were to Barry Bonds, what Tom DeLay is to gerrymandering, what Jack Abramoff is to public service. So it’s understandable the fear and trembling that runs through GOP ranks every time the grand jury meets. With a tough mid-term election coming up, how can they survive without their master of deceit and deception?

My advice is: don’t sweat it. Rove won’t be that big a loss. Not after six years in the White House. Trying to contain and explain the gaffes and excesses of this administration have taken its toll. Rove is like an aging big-league pitcher (think Randy Johnson) who has lost something off his fast ball and can’t get anybody out any more.

If you don’t think Rove is slipping, then you just haven’t been paying attention.

You can’t really blame Rove for Bill Frist’s looney idea of a $100 gasoline rebate as the solution to high gas prices. But GOP “health week” was surely Rove, and the “miracle cure” they pushed was a Senate bill that would enrich insurance agencies while gutting state regulations protecting consumers. Plop plop, fizz, fizz. Republicans were fortunate it died on the shelf.

They weren’t so lucky with the $70 billion tax cut—it passed. There were high-fives in the White House over that one, particularly since they also managed to exclude from the bill a $5 billion tax increase on oil companies. (Let’s see now Karl, just how is this $70 billion tax cut gonna play going into an election where 99% of the people who vote get nothing?) Even the New York Daily News, a publication that has been Fox-like in its adoration of everything Bush, wrote an editorial headlined “Bush’s Gift to the Rich”. Cutting taxes at a time of soaring budget deficits even gagged some Republicans. Sen. Voinovich of Ohio said bitterly “if we were responsible, we’d go to the American people and ask them for a tax increase to pay for the cost of the war.”

Between grand jury appearances, Rove assures Republican audiences he is absolutely confident the party will do well in the mid-term elections. Karl, do you have any idea how bad it really is? You have an incumbent Congressman in rosy-red North Carolina who is losing to Heath Shuler! If a carpetbagger from Tennessee and the worst draft choice in Washington Redskin history can beat your guy in the south, you’ve got problems.

In the past when all else fails (gay marriage, flag burning amendments), Rove’s trump card is to focus attention on the President’s personal popularity. That was then. This is now. Despite all evidence to the contrary, Rove still thinks Bush’s folksy down-home demeanor will save him. Which shows how Rove is losing it. The old savvy Rove fooled others, but never himself. Yet here he is sounding like a member of Bush’s pre-screened audiences, insisting “people like him, they respect him.” Get a grip, Karl. It’s over. Even conservatives are jumping ship while historians rush books to publishers about our worst President ever. The 29% of the people in the polls who approve of him either work for the administration or have relatives at Halliburton.

Face it Karl. This mid-term election is going to make 1994 look like a minor adjustment. Not only is Heath Shuler going to trounce Charley Taylor in North Carolina, but voter outrage will trigger a Democratic tsunami that throws all the bums out.

Former New York Sen. Alfonse d’Amato-- who helped lead the 1994 uprising—recently had some good advice for Rove and his party. “They say that prayer is powerful. This is a time when Republicans should be doing a lot of praying.”

Think about it Karl. Minimum-security might look pretty good compared to the chaos Republicans will endure over the remaining Bush years.