The Expletive is Deleted at last.

As I commented on the Salmon thread, this isn't really what you think it is folks. This is not an environmental issue, it is all about money.

The anti-farm and anti-rural Bush Administration has been playing a masterful game of game of misdirection on rural issues. They keep telling farmers, ranchers, and loggers that the Democrats are killing them due to "environmentalism". And, shame on the Democrats and Progrssives for buying into this "frame" of issues. The fact is that the Republican Administration is unwilling to spend a dime in rural America, and they keep using these old worn out scape goat issues.

Why cut more timber?? They need the MONEY!. Where will the money go? A trickle will come back to rural Counties to appease the local folk as the Federal Government breaks its promise to be a good neighbor (e.g. payments in lieu of property tax - PILT). But the bulk of the money offsets Forest Service and BLM expenses, freeing up money to buy bombs for Iraq.

If you want to protest the proposed timber cuts, please use the proper "frame". The Bush Administration wants to cut down trees faster than makes sense for a renewable resource to make money, which will not stay in Oregon, but will go to the massive debt machine the Republicans have created in Washington DC. Our future will be cut down to give the most fiscally irresponsible Administration in the history of the world more money to waste.

If you want to mitigate the long term consequences of Bush's brain and his assault on our rights, Rove needs to spend his autumn years in a PMITA prison.

More importantly, this administration must be rebuked through the impeachment of Bush, Cheney and Gonzales (whether or not the Senate has the courage to convict).

The Bill Moyers interview last month is must see TV.

The short-term result was a series of catastrophic failures of governance and the most incompetent administration in a century.

Cmon! Most incompetent in a century? Ol' George's administration will never be ranked in the top 20 but Warren Harding and Herbert Hoover are certain to always occupy the bottom two in competency this past century.

I doubt this is anything other than Rove moving to the most likely candidate for '08. His reputation for skill in electioneering remains untarnished among Republicans.

I expect him to pop up in Fred Thompson's camp in about 3-6 months.

Here's a look back at PlameGate and the results of the "Karl Rove Whack-a-Mole Contest."

Uhhhm... folks, you don't have to be a Grumpy 'Ol Logger to notice that there's no mills left to buy the damned logs. And damned few experienced loggers and millworkers to cut, transport, process and mill them. So who we gonna' sell 'um to? 80% of Northwest wheat is sold to Asian markets - good for the wheat farmers but...

No way will Rove resurface with another candidate! The guy would bring WAY too much baggage with him and has to be considered poison by any of the leading Republican candiates.

Now of course,if sometime next year Rove wanted to help the Republican nominee, then he could come out and publicly endorse Hillary! That would be good for a few chuckles.

We fall into a trap when we characterize the Shrubbery as incompetent. These folks have immense resources, including the ability to buy the best brains available. Much that is seen as mistake, incompetence, and bad luck is the desired effect of policy that would be rejected as hellishly immoral if it were espoused in public.

Nor is there anything novel here. Shrub, Cheney, Rove, et al are just the latest crop of actors and stagehands to put on the play. Rove has done his job. He will live well in retirement. The rest of us will suffer for it.

Good post Tom! I agree, although I am sure very very few of us are going to suffer much at all. Life went on after Nixon, after Carter, and after Regan. It will go fine for most all of us after GW. Even the worst of Presidents such as Harding, Hoover, Nixon, and Carter, had much of an effect on life in America after they left office.

This is not the end of Rove, by anymeans. He will publish a million dollar book and then leech on to the top Republican candidate. His role as "King Maker" is not even close to being over. Don't kid yourselves.

Rove isn't going anywhere I fear.

I think he has been tapped to run the election for the next Republican scum so that they will win, it's probably a multi-million dollar deal for Rove.

Let's see where he turns up.

Rove isn't going anywhere I fear.

I would guess he has been tapped to fix the next election for "whoever" is the new Republican to take the torch and do what daddy bush wants.

Rove is done in politics....at least outside the local level.

There is no point in worrying about him resurfacing.

It's rather naive to believe that Rove is going to simply ride off into the Texas sunset never to bother us again. While he cashes in on a book deal or gets paid back for services rendered by sitting on some board of directors or in some think tank, he'll also be continuing his honed craft of gutter politics, and i don't imagine it'll be for some school board candidate.

Congress needs to subpoena the swine and when he defies the order, he should be rounded up by the Capitol police and tossed in a cell. This is not only Congress's right under inherent contempt, it is their duty to exercise oversight over the Executive branch.

I've been criticized before for making comparisons to Hitler's rise to and abuse of power, but even Bruce Fein (noted conservative and constitutional lawyer who wrote the first article impeachment against Clinton) makes the following parallel.

Commenting on Sara Taylors refusal to testify before Congress ("I took an oath to uphold the president.") Fein told Bill Moyers "that was like the military in Germany saying, 'My oath is to the Führer, not to the country.'"

It's rather naive to believe that Rove is going to simply ride off into the Texas sunset never to bother us again.

Did Rove bother you Thom? I can't think of a single way he bothered me and I hang in the same circles you do.

Don't let worthless political leeches bother you my friend.

Yes, Skip. Rove did a great deal to bother me. Invite me out for a beer and i'll tell you all about it.

Well, Rove may silently go his merry way but I can pretty much guarantee his phone will be ringing off the hook in his secret bunker in Texas where he will most certainly be in an "advisory" roll for plenty of Republican candidates out there. His reputation as a policy maker is tarnished but as a man who can win an election...he's still their bright and shining star.

I see Rove in a brocade robe and pointed hat, headmaster of a school of the black arts training Republican campaign operatives in dirty tricks and Republican candidates in how to seem just a regular, but very Christian, guy.

Karl Rove is just another bastion of the elite. He does just what a "good christian" should do. I am appalled at how this administration has deteriarated this demorcratic process. It is an embarresment to democracy. Shame on the Republican party

Stephanie V:

That New Yorker piece you link to is an excellent, well-written, and tremendously interesting article. Thank you for sharing.

Jeff Alworth:

Rove was a genius of sorts.

Bob T:

I think you're overrating Rove a great deal.

Jeff Alworth:

Rove had an instinctive sense about how to divide voters so that just a bare majority supported his woeful candidate

Bob T:

No, a genius would have gotten a bigger majority delivered.

Jeff Alworth:

There was no policy he couldn't tinker with to punish Democrats or rally Republicans, whether the subject was tax cuts or terrorism.

Bob T:

Again, more nonsense. Look at the immigration issue, and the budget. That really worked to rally everyone and punish others. Besides, any halfway decent campaign strategist could play the terrorism and other cards to good effect. Quit overrating this moron. He was elevated by the press into something he was not. There may have been some value to being able to memorize details of all districts etc, but that doesn't make him a genius at strategy.

Bob Tiernan

I love the standard GOP line, "going to spend more time with my lawyers."

If Karl is "Da Architect", the USA's house in falling down, it's on fire and the dogs, The Twins, have ran away.

And there's a $1,000,000,000,000 IOU from the U.S. Treasury in the rusted out mailbox laying on the front lawn.

See you in hell, sweetie, if not sooner. Much sooner.

Poor Sid.....his imagination creates a delightfully wicked version of Karl Rove that is larger than life, and then he allows himself to be tormented endlessly by Ol' Karl's various misdeeds; some real, most imagined.

C'mon Sid....Rove is an overated geek. He made a good target to keep the arrows away from others in the administration that were FAR more culpable.

Skip, where's the invite??? Let's see if a died in the hemp liberal and an [fill-in-the-blank] can see eye to eye.

Rove may or not be involved in the next Presidential campaign but little mentioned is the fact there are Rove-clone proteges' on the staffs of each of the republican contenders. So although he may be gone from the front lines his tactics will still live on in '08. Which considering how disastrous they worked in '06 might be considered an advantage for democrats.

Maybe he's stepping down like Rumsfeld stepped down: to an office with staff in the bunker.

... and please stop referring to Bush as having been elected. The first time, the Supreme Court gave him his very own, nonprecedent-setting ruling because he would have been discommoded had he lost. The second time, they just flat out STOLE that puppy.

over at Daily Kos a fresh post on this topic. Worth the read

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/8/15/16204/1962

"...Here's the thing. Someday, Karl Rove will die. When that day comes, we will all have to pretend he was something other than a piss-headed man hated by everyone but those he found useful, and as matter of convention we will have to treat him with momentary respect. So let's write his epitaph now, while being as mean to him is still perfectly allowable and much more sporting.

Karl Rove was not a "great political mind". His sole contribution to the nation was getting the worst president in history elected on a campaign of unabashed bullcrap, then proceeding to help guide that president into foreign and domestic policy failures at every opportunity. If that's what passes for Republican brilliance, then it explains... well, pretty much everything, actually. Point taken."

and it goes on... so well put...

link

gaia:

... and please stop referring to Bush as having been elected. The first time, the Supreme Court gave him his very own, nonprecedent-setting ruling because he would have been discommoded had he lost. The second time, they just flat out STOLE that puppy.

Bob T:

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz..............

Bob T

<h2>Before I applaud Rove's departure I'd like to know what his future career plans will be.</h2>