ROVE -- POLITICAL GENIUS OR PASTY-FACED LOSER?

Did anyone else catch those shots of Karl Rove's fat bloated face during one of the Chimp's post-election "press conferences"? Maybe it was when Rummy was cashiered, or when Bush blathered on about a "thumpin", or some other such phony, over-scripted, made-for-TV exercise in fraud and deceit. I can't remember exactly. It was at one of those corporate-media cattle-calls, immediately in the wake of the midterms, and there was the evil bastard himself -- Rove, the scientifically improbable offspring of Josef Goebbels and Porky Pig -- sporting that patented, blubbery smirk, which normal people are all too familiar with. He looked strangely tranquil, content even; to my jaundiced eye, he certainly did not have the countenance of a mediocre political troll who just stage-managed a Republican electoral train wreck. What gives? What's the backstory to Rove's nauseous complacency?

There's been some indistinct burblings in blogdom about the apparent inexplicability of purported political "genius" Rove and his hugely inept handling of Repug fortunes during this most recent election cycle. With such a well-deserved reputation as one of Niccolo Machiavelli's most fervent, ball-washing acolytes, a bottom-feeding operative who never shrank from plumbing any political depth (so long as it's effective), Rove's "performance" this time around is hard to fathom. Some far-out speculators out there are suggesting that, just perhaps, what we've been witnessing is nothing but a grand ploy, a highly sophisticated and very nuanced political operation of quite staggering subtlety. I suppose it could be posited that one way to ensure the long-term survivability of the PNAC/Neo-Con conception of corporatist domination, in an uncertain atmosphere where the primary figurehead -- in this case, Bush -- is extremely unpopular, would be to effect a tactical retreat, as it were. They knew, of course, that a solid majority of the voting public was squarely against them, for a huge catalog of reasons, with the Chimp and his war being the focal points of revulsion and opposition; the discontent was (and is) so palpable and insistent, that it largely overwhelmed the right-wing game of "Diebolding" the election, in fact. What better way to position themselves effectively in 2008, when surely their sick totalitarian fantasies will reach full diseased flower, than to provide the next crop of radical Republican nut-jobs a mechanism by which they can distance themselves from a reviled monkey-boy President in 2006. They temporarily sacrifice their control of Congress, running before the wind of public opinion -- a capricious and completely unpredictable wind that could turn 180-degrees tomorrow, thereby sweeping the Repugs back into power and providing them the opportunity to complete their project of destroying constitutional government in the United States.

I'm not necessarily saying that I believe Rove deliberately tossed an election so the real Nazification of America can continue apace, a brief period of Democratic congressional control notwithstanding. It's entirely possible that Rove really is the hopeless turd-brained buffoon he's apparently turned into, or always has been. But, naturlich, nothing is what it appears to be, and that's particularly true among a political class that views power as the ultimate zero-sum game, and as merely a point in itself. I can't erase that image of Rove's pasty and glabrous face from my mind -- smugly confident, in the bleak aftermath of an electoral "disaster" ... One thing is certain: if the appalling idea that Repug insiders could perhaps throw an election -- shitcanning some present advantages for much greater rewards later -- has occurred to a tiny sampling of us faceless nobodies out here, then certainly it's crossed the evilly fucked-up brain-pans of Rove and his foul minions.

Oh shit -- I need another drink.