I found a part of "Dilbert and the Way of The Weasel" that describes Rove perfectly - always undermine people on the things where they are strong and you are weak. If they are accurate and don't make mistakes, call them "obsessed with detail." If they aren't clock watches and regularly put in a little more than 40 hours, say they "don't manage their time effectively." This is not fresh insight, but it must be repeated until everyone understands it.

We saw this with Gore where he was portrayed as the creation of media consultants because they helped him pick his shirts, while Bush was buying that turkey ranch (without horses, which he can't ride)and buying his precious little cowboy Halloween costumes.

And that worked so well that we had the Swiftboaters attacking Kerry on his war record, even though a year later the press went to Vietnam and found witnesses to the battle.

But in the end, the consequence was that we ended up with Rove as the poisonous little queen (no pun intended) bee surrounded by layer upon layer of incompetents, suckups, and imbeciles, who have nearly destroyed the country, presumably because he had killed off every competent person in his circle. Now he fights with Cheney and Rumsfeld, who at least had the sense to partner up rather than try to kill each other off.

One question is whether or not blogswarms will be able to help counter those tactics in the future. The bigger question is whether people that understand this are going to have their "Mad as hell.." moment and go door to door, talk to people, and then give people rides to the polls on election day.