Rove Is An America Hero

Of course, the America that is celebrating Rove is not necessarily the place where most of us want to live. Paul Krugman in his NY Times column today talks about what it takes to be a hero in Rovian America.

Mr. Rove ... understands, better than anyone else in American politics, the power of smear tactics. Attacks on someone who contradicts the official line don't have to be true, or even plausible, to undermine that person's effectiveness. All they have to do is get a lot of media play, and they'll create the sense that there must be something wrong with the guy.

Creatures like Rove only flourish in an environment where ethically retarded politicians like George Bush take advantage of their total inability to distinguish what is moral from that which is immoral. Give a morally challenged man, a morally challenged enabler and you have the Bush Presidency.

Krugman points out the key meme in the whole Plamegate affair.

Ultimately, this isn't just about Mr. Rove. It's also about Mr. Bush, who has always known that his trusted political adviser - a disciple of the late Lee Atwater, whose smear tactics helped President Bush's father win the 1988 election - is a thug, and obviously made no attempt to find out if he was the leaker.

Over at Whiskey Bar, Billmon, points out what the outcome of Novak's phone call could have been, if Karl Rove hadn't spent his entire career trying to figure out how to screw other people over.

I mean, just for laughs, imagine what might have happened if Novak had called Rove up to ask about Valerie Plame, and Turdblossom had said, "Sorry, Bob, but we have a policy of not talking about CIA professionals -- especially when we're not sure what they do or what their status is. I'm afraid I can't comment."

Of course, Rove would never stoop to that kind of honesty and integrity.