With Karl Rove a private citizen, one has to wonder what he's up to now.
There's been a lot of speculation that it might involve nefarious schemes to derail the strongest Democratic candidate - who Rove believes is Clinton, whatever he says.
So how would they do that?
Follow me...
An Iran attack is what Democrats fear most right now. Not least because it would be so hard for them to fight it tooth and nail, while continuing to appear "strong on defense" and "anti-terror" and "supportive of the troops".
And because they can't stop it, actually, if Bush is crazy enough to order it.
So how would a political creature like Rove use this? Threaten war with Iran, prepare for war with Iran, demand Congress support war with Iran, above all make war with Iran seem immanent and inevitable -- so much so that front-running Democrats, or at least Clinton, are forced to take sides.
Because we know where Clinton will go, if the country goes to war again. She'll have to go with it. Resistance would be suicide, to a woman who's trying above all else to convince the country she's a strong on defense as any man.
But it would have to go right to the brink, so that Clinton is forced to state her position. She's a professional prevaricator, and getting her to commit ain't easy.
It doesn't really matter whether she says yeah or nay, as long as she commits. Because then she's toast either way.
All Bush has to do at that point is pull the plug. Back off. Strike lightly or not at all. Show restraint and prudence and all those things Daddy showed that he never has. Let a grateful country breathe a sigh of relief. Go into history as the strong man who saved us from war with Iran.
The attack doesn't have to happen, once Hillary has weighed in for or against. Because no one, on either side of the absurd is-she-or-isn't-she-trustworthy debate among Democratic voters, will have any doubt of their answer once she's answered that question. Half will hate her, and the other half will maybe trust her. But half isn't enough.
She needs most Democrats to win, not half of them. Both the conservatives and the liberals. If she doesn't unite them in the end, she loses. And if she tips her hand on the question of war before the election, she won't get them both.
Now, this kind of masterful coordination is typical of Rove. One might think, with Rove out of the White House and Cheney in charge, it couldn't happen any more. Maybe not. Or maybe Rove isn't really gone. Maybe Bush has always been a bit more the 'decider' that it sometimes seems. Perhaps he's more than capable of running a Rove-calibrated scam by telephone, yanking Cheney back from the brink by his chain at the very last perfect political minute, as called by Karl.
Personally, I've always been sort of in awe at what this president can get away with, politically. He puts "slick Willy" to shame. He can't even talk, he can't read words from a teleprompter reliably, and yet he wins again and again. I don't think he's clueless, politically, not at all. Maybe Rove really is his brain, but he's got his own mind. The danger is that he really is the 'decider'. He's a more self-centered, arrogant president than Nixon, but he's not utterly delusional -- he just doesn't care about anything much you care about.
Sure, he lies to himself too -- you can't lie all day, every day, without coming to believe your own to some extent. But he's a criminal politician to the core. He judges the likely outcome of every political move as accurately as any man alive. And he has Rove to sharpen that 'vision' for him -- narrow and heartless and yes, evil as it is.
So could Bush and Rove screw Hillary by manipulating us all with a phony attack on Iran? They've gotten away with an awful lot so far. This time, though, Bush is up against the other candidate for greatest political [con-]artist of our political generation, Bill Clinton. It's still a toss-up who's the champion 'survivor' of those two. So we just don't know how it will play out this time, but I think it's gonna be down to the wire.
Set aside, for a minute, your blinding love and/or hate relationships with these two men (not to mention their wives). See them only as politically skilled survivors, men of the game, in the emotionless light that falls on them when their backs are truly to the wall. That's when we know them. That's when they do their thing to us.
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