Friday, August 31, 2007

ROVE, PART II, A - - LAST DAY FOR G.W.'S SPINMEISTER

You might want to read Part I of this four-part posting on Karl Rove first. Scroll down to Part I of III (Part One). Or, if you have already done that, now scroll up to Part II, B.

Today is Karl Christian Rove's last day at the White House as G.W. Bush's appointed "Secretary of Propaganda". Rove returned from Texas and traveling with his buddy G.W. a couple of days ago to find his Jaguar, parked in the lot adjacent to the West Wing, covered with plastic wrap. Two stuffed eagle toys were mounted on the trunk, and post-it notes on the car read "King Karl" and "I love Obama." The prank was apparently carried out by insiders as the parking area is heavily patrolled by the Secret Service.
See the video at CBS News.

Will Rove actually be gone? Hardly. A couple of weeks ago after he made his resignation statement 21 August, he immediately made the rounds on the Sunday political talk shows before flying off with G.W. Of course, he aimed his venom directly at Hillary Clinton. Rove is good with hate, and he has a lot of it pent up inside him.

G.W. Bush saw this over 16 years ago and immediately realized he could use Karl Rove. G.W. is good at using people for his own aggrandizement and power grabs. You see, G.W. needed a hatchet man knowledgeable in the propaganda techniques of Adolf Hitler's Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels, and a man who hated democrats, homosexuals, abortionist as much as Goebbels hated Jews and Marxists. Rove was G.W.'s man.

Listen to Rove when he speaks and listen to what he writes for G. W., and it is easy to surmise that Rove despises all democrats and liberals. He constanly strings the two together in his rhetoric, the aim being to evoke in the mind of the listener negative images of both. He is very good at what he does, and he learned by studying the master, which brings us back to Joseph Goebbels.

Rove relishes making speeches in which he slurs democrats. He never says "the majority of . . ., many . . ., or most democrats." No he says all democrats collectively -- the Goebbels propaganda principal of picking a group (racial, political, intellectual, religious) and telling many defaming lies about them, over and over. At the same time, Goebbels sent others out to repeat exactly what he was saying. In propaganda it is called "the bandwagon effect." It works because, eventually, everyone seems to believe the same thing. Therefore, an individual hears it often from different sources and begins to think, "Everyone else must be right, and I better join them. Now!"

If someone keeps saying over and over that democrats are bad, liberals are bad, all democrats are liberals, all liberals are democrats, and saying it long enough and loud enough, over and over, while getting others to do the same, a listener is indoctrinated without consent and comes to believe all democrats are liberals, and all liberals are bad, or vice versa, therefore, democrats and liberals are bad, evil people. Thus comes hate and division and ultimately, chaos within society. Think, red v. blue states.

Here is the scenario. The general population is anxious and fearful, and some charismatic individual, preferably a male, steps forward and keeps saying, "I, and I alone, can run democrats and liberals out of office and end the chaos." Others are pointing to that individual saying, "He, and he alone, can run democrats and liberals out of office and end the chaos." Ironically, "the chaos" is never defined, but there must be chaos because everyone is talking about it.

Result? That individual, anointed by a few powerful people as the savior of all, wins the election, or in the worse case scenario becomes a dictator and, as was the case with the Nazis, implements the final solution -- physical extermination of all opposition.

Rove used many of Goebbels' propaganda techniques in order to steal elections from the residents of Texas as well as all Americans in the national elections. Many of the same techniques Hitler's guards in his Storm Section (Sturm Abteilung), or popularly known in English as (1) storm troopers and (2) SA Brown Shirts used to take control of the Parliament (Reichstag in Berlin) in 1933, Rove used in Texas and in the presidential elections, especially in the State of Florida. Remember the mobs that assaulted the polling places there in 2000?

Rove officially leaves the White House today, and today Tony Snow announced he is leaving his post as White House Press Secretary in two weeks. He will be replaced by deputy press secretary Dana Perino. Snow, who is battling colon cancer, says he's leaving to make more money.

Now, why couldn't Rove have said that. It would have been more honest than the usual mantra chanted by those departing government service, "I'm leaving to spend more time with my family." Of course, there's an unsung coda to that mantra where Rove is concerned, " Which is what I shall do as soon as I write that million-dollar-plus tell-all book."


MORE ABOUT GOEBBELS: (1) (2) MORE ABOUT NAZI GERMANY

TO BE CONTINUED . . . .

NEXT POST - ROVE, PART II, B - - In the next post, more about similarities between Karl Rove and the Joseph Goebbels propaganda machine. In later posts, what is Karl Rove's birth name and why is he now distancing himself from the Rove family?

Monday, August 27, 2007

GONZALES GONE

Alberto Gonzales, the nation's first Hispanic attorney general who served for a little over two years, announced his resignation this morning. This finally ends a nasty standoff between Gonzales and members of Congress over his honesty and competence at the helm of the Justice Department.

Republicans and Democrats alike have demanded his resignation over the botched handling of FBI terror investigations and the firings of U.S. attorneys, but President Bush defiantly stood by his Texas friend until accepting his resignation Friday. Bush was not by Gonzales' side when he made the formal announcement in D.C. this morning, as he was when Rove made his resignation statement.

Solicitor General Paul Clement will be acting attorney general until a replacement is found, said the officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid pre-empting the announcement. Rumors are that Bush has no idea what name he will put forth for a confirmed appointment.

As attorney general and earlier as White House counsel, Gonzales pushed for expanded presidential powers, including authority to eavesdrop on American citizens. He drafted controversial rules for military war tribunals and sought to limit the legal rights of detainees at Guantanamo Bay — prompting lawsuits by civil libertarians who said the government was violating the Constitution in its pursuit of terrorists.

Then, there is the continuing flap over the fired prosecutors that proved to be the final straw for Gonzales, whose truthfulness in testimony to Congress was questioned. Some lawmakers said the dismissals of the federal prosecutors appeared to be politically motivated.

Thousands of documents released by the Justice Department show a White House plot, hatched shortly after the 2004 elections, to replace U.S. attorneys. At one point, senior White House officials, including Rove, suggested replacing all 93 prosecutors. In several House and Senate hearings into the firings, Gonzales and other Justice Department officials failed to fully explain the ousters without contradicting each other.

Gonzales, whom Bush once considered for appointment to the Supreme Court, is the fourth top-ranking administration official to leave since November 2006. Donald Rumsfeld, an architect of the failed Iraqi incursion, resigned as defense secretary one day after the November elections. Paul Wolfowitz, also a proponent of invading Iraq, agreed in May to step down as president of the World Bank after an ethics inquiry. Top Bush adviser Rove -- no doubt about where he came down about Iraq -- announced earlier this month that he was stepping down to spend more time with his family. Who among you believe that last one -- about the family, I mean?

Only Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice remains untouched and is scheduled to remain until Bush boards Air Force One for the last time. I guess that's because she's such a damn good crossword puzzle player with Bush, or it could be because she's done so damn little as secretary of state that, unlike Rumsfeld, Rove and Gonzales, she's managed to not get Congress in a flutter. Anyway, Gonzalez and Rove will officially, and hopefully, physically leave D.C. in September. Back to Texas both of you! Hooray!!

Some information for this post taken from an Associated Press Article. Read the complete article, without my comments and edits, at the Associated Press Web site, and read the one from Reuters.

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

KARL ROVE BYE-BYE? Part I of III

Karl Rove, the chief neo-conservative (a.k.a., neo-con) choked back tears as he made his final speech on the White House lawn before boarding the presidential helicopter for a free ride back to Texas last week with his good buddy G.W. Bush. Rove was, as usual, freeloading at U.S. taxpayers' expense. That's what he has been doing for years. Never elected to an office. Never a Senate-confirmed appointee. Nah. He's simply a good ole buddy of his boss G.W. who needs him 24-7. Yeah. Right.

Rove said he was leaving the White House because of his family, especially his son. Who knew? Karl Rove has a family? A son? Whoa. What rock have they been hiding under and why is Rove acknowledging them now?

So, what could be the real reason Karl Rove is leaving. I posture two reasons that would cause him to leave now:

1. Rove is, to borrow the elder Bush's phrase, in "deep doo doo," and could face prosecution due to his role in the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson. It is best that he leave now and hope that if he is found guilty, a conviction that could carry the death penalty, G.W. will still be in office to give him a quick pardon before January 20, 2009. Can you say Scooter Libby?

2. Rove got full credit for G.W.'s elections as governor of Texas (twice) and as president of the United States (twice). However, Rove's despicable tactics of fostering hate and derision didn't work in 2006. Both the Democrats and many Americans (Democrats plus a few wise Republicans) finally got what he is about. Rove failed, and rather than acknowledge his defeat outright, he uses his family as an excuse to make a quick exit. Who will heap upon his head the blame he so rightly deserves for this failure? Obviously, not G.W.

Please ponder the above a couple of minutes before reading onward.

Tom Toles is an editorial cartoonist with The Washington Post. He is also Pulitzer Prize winner. From time to time, I post one of his cartoons on
Tolerance's Page. I particularly like this one, and wish to share it with you:



NEXT in Karl Rove Bye-Bye. Part II, A: What is Rove's real last name? What does he have in common with the late Adolf Hitler's Minister of Propaganda, the late Joseph Goebbels. Does Rove have a dual citizenship U.S. and Germany? Why is Rove so filled with hate. Is it because Rove is secretly in love with Hillary Clinton and hates Bill because Bill has her and Karl never will? Perhaps, he also hates Hillary because she stands a good chance of being president of the U.S.A. in 2009, and Rove stands none, ever?
Will we see and hear more from Rove? You bet your biffy. The political soap opera continues . . . . .