In a highly-rec'd diary, My Left Behind used a faked email from Karl Rove to criticize the Progressive on Dailykos for criticizing the President. In the discussion thread, My Left Behind explained his/her reasoning to a commenter:
I tried to point out that much of the work here is aligned with what a Rove operative would try to do
Well, I have my own theory. It strikes me that the Professional Centrists on Dailykos are actually the individuals who are behaving more like Rove operatives than the hippies they are punching.
Think about it. Karl Rove is nothing if not a diabolically clever schemer.
If he were to plan a special ops scheme to foment dissension among Democrats, using phony I.D.'s, why would it make more sense for these fake Democrats to pose as economic leftists criticizing the President than it would be for them to pose as loyal Centrists, criticizing the Left? Either would succeed in causing dissension; which one would make more sense from a scheming Republican's POV?
Clearly, it would make more sense to create dissension from the center, for even though they would be using the voice of Democratic 'centrists' to criticize the Left, they would still be criticizing the Left, which is THE enemy they are trying to defeat. That way they are able to attack (demonize) the Left both from without and within.
The Republicans actually have no fear of the rhetoric of Dem Centrists, for none of their compromising instincts threaten the corporatist goals that the Republicans want to achieve.
If the Republicans want to foment dissension among Democrats, why would they want to pose as Leftists criticizing the President for being too "Republican?" That kind of criticism could/might ultimately have an impact on the independents if it were to leak out to them, persuading them that the Republicans are actually evil jerks.
In order for these operatives to be taken seriously by the Left, they would have to come up with some effective criticism of the President that is convincingly "leftist", wouldn't they? But doing so would simply add to the total amount of criticism of the Republican agenda that is heard across the country, adding their voices (the operatives') to those of the true leftists out there.
Why would the Republicans want to do such a thing? Their hope has always been that the voices of the Left can be drowned out by the Republican Party's "shouting machine."
Why give the Left anything, when it is just as easy to split the Dems from the Center? It makes much more sense for them to create the dissension they seek by posing as "reasonable" centrists who are loyally defending the President from radical critics from the Hippie Left.
No, the theory espoused by My Left Behind makes no sense at all. What makes far more sense coming from the mind of Karl Rove is a phony Dem scheme where the Centrist Operatives loudly point the finger at the Leftists, accusing them of doing the very thing that they are doing, themselves.
That little Republican trick we have seen before. How many times have we heard, now, about the gay-bashing Republican politicians actually turning out to be gay, themselves? What better way to disguise hidden truths about yourself than by accusing your opponents of being the very thing that you are, yourself?
That is about as Rovian as you can get.
(Note: I'm not claiming that any of the Professional Centrists at Dailykos actually are Rovian plants, but I am saying that it makes much more sense that they would be Republican plants than any of the Leftist Hippies posting at Dailydos. It would better fit what we know of the Republicans' diabolical schemes, historically.)