Of Karl Rove,

[dweller]

Nixon's gray ghost, pinball proto-fascism, muscle car imperialism, and the Gong
Show of the American political system
By Phil Rockstroh

August 3, 2005—An unpopular war drags on, gas prices rise and rise as a
cloud of scandal gathers over Washington D.C.

At times, it seems as though the 1970s never ended: it's just Ronald Reagan
and Bill Clinton's Quaalude-laced, faux populist snake oil caused us to sleep
through the 80s and 90s—and now we're awakening, hung over, groggy,
queasy, still in the midst of that ugly and odious era. At least, that's the
encrypted message I've been able to decipher, using my Super-Secret,
Decoder Mood Ring, special limited,

George W. Bush and Karl Rove are as much products of the 1970s as were
Naugahyde pit group sofas and outbreaks of the herpes simplex retrovirus at
Plato's Retreat. Historically, the world will regard the Bush administration as
the Dacron polyester of American presidencies: its legacy will carry all the
beauty, style, and enduring appeal of a powder blue leisure suit. George
Bush, himself, will be remembered as the Pet Rock of the American
plutocratic class.

Accordingly, if there is any presiding spirit possessing the current zeitgeist,
it is the gray ghost of Dick Nixon. During the Watergate era, Karl Rove
apprehended a fact the rest of us pushed out of our minds, due to its
troubling implications: Nixon wasn't brought down because Americans were
troubled by having a sick, corrupt bastard as their president—we simply
found it embarrassing to have the White House curtains pulled open, thus
allowing the the world to witness Nixon pacing the floors, draped in a dingy
bathrobe, muttering expletives at the yellowing, West Wing wallpaper.

Moreover, Rove perceived that Nixon's paranoia, rage, envy, and resentment
merely mirrored those of the American middle class. Nixon knew from the
depths of his black spleen to the tips of his twitching nerve endings the dark
side of the American character and how the pathologies therein could be
exploited for political gain. In 1972, Rove watched and learned as Nixon was
reelected in a landslide victory. Nixon showed Rove that the American middle
and laboring classes feared and hated those spoiled brat, college campus
radicals and uppity blacks that they saw every night on the evening news
more passionately than they loved their own freedom.

http://www.onlinejournal.com/Commentary/080305Rockstroh/080305rockstroh.html

dp

[dweller]

1. dayum...

not a peep about this article...not a single denial... nor terse reply telling me to get a grip...not a 'wow...just wow'.

nada.

dayum.
dp

[bemildred]

2. Eh, OK.

It's right, but it's too cute about it.

I am often struck by the similarities, and by how many of the bozos that are fucking the country now were around fucking the country then, NoFacts for instance, Dumbsfeldt and the NeoCon clones, to name a few, Senator Byrd and a bunch of his fellows in the Senate.

The current crisis is definitely a rerun, unfinished business, from the VietNam days, we didn't finish the job back then, we went back to sleep.

But this guy gets too impressionistic about it, muddies the water too much, lacks the Hunter S. Thompson razorblade of insight.

Just my 2c.

[dweller]

3. yeah, okay

i started reading it thinking it would be a fun satire, and then as it progressed, started noticing a full rant mode coming on.
but the 'looking in the mirror' part...i guess at that point i believed he had a point.

anyway, i love a good rant in the morning with my coffee.

dp

[bemildred]

4. He does have a point.

And I like a good rant too.
But complicated stuff sinks like a stone all the time.

Edit: PS I'd post it anyway.

[applegrove]

5. Link Isn't Working for me.

[applegrove]

6. Okay - got it!