Dick Cheney for president? Will lunacy triumph?

Re-posted from Plunderbund


Like Mack the Knife, Dick Cheney is back in town.  He and his daughter Liz have announced a new non-profit group called Alliance for a Strong America to shame Barack  Obama's presidency.   And if your thing is the Theater of the Absurd then you have to believe that every rich Obama hater in the land with some loose change will drop a few coins  in his cup.

And if anything is deserving of a Saturday Night Live schtick, you could spread the rumor that Cheney, so full of sound and fury,  is again stirring up media coverage because he's actually running for president to restore our unique position as the global sheriff. Sounds silly, I know.  But with  the former veep who always operates beyond the limits of reality, silliness has no meaning.  We  can even envision a scenario in which he attaches Liz to his ticket as his running-daughter. It would dispel the notion among anyone who shudders at his name that he is a cold-blooded lunatic.  Instead, he would come across as a tender loving family guy who merely wants to see his daughter get ahead.

Karl Rove  would immediately predict a landslide victory for Cheney.  And Donald Trump would be thrilled that we finally had a white guy in the Oval Office who was born in America.

 And in swing-state Ohio. the projected turnout  for our new hero on Election Day would be so large in even the smallest counties  that Secretary of State Jon Husted would alert all of the local election boards to remain open around the clock by Labor Day for early voting.

If I all of this sounds too crazy for words, you can't say I didn't warn you.  Did I mention that a lunatic is on the loose again?

legislative rumors to cancel 2014 gubernatorial election

With encouraging predictions from the GOP's resident gurus, Karl Rove and Dick Morris, that Gov.Kasich would defeat Democrat Ed  FitzGerald by 47 points, several low-ranking Republican lawmakers from southern Ohio are rumored  to be putting the final touches on a bill that would eliminate the 2014 gubernatorial election altogether.  One of the probable legislative  sponsors, an entry level statistician in JobsOhio, the secret Skull and Bones-style fraternity,  said he was impressed by crunching the numbers of campaign dollars and votes.  "It would save the state  money and create 627,492 - maybe even 627, 501 - jobs," he said. "Who could be against jobs?"  he asked rhetorically. Who, indeed?

Rove returns to slay the vampires!

Good grief!  Karl Rove, one of the big losers in the November election, is unapologetically back to slay the GOP's no-longer-welcome intruders. He's prepared to offer  a daring new see-through Spring Collection for his winless lot of hapless candidates. Editorial writers would describe the plan as "bold". You could say that, too, as in "desperately bold". Everybody in the political world is talking about it.

Rove has  created a new Super PAC that he calls the modern Conservative Victory Project to halt the Tea Partyers in their tracks.  And if you think that will finally bring peace,  harmony  and a little sense to Rove's party, you haven't followed the modern saga of the more distressed right-wing crowd that finds something to hate in government every hour.

Rove has always been something of a behavioral therapist, leading  George W.Bush's through more reflective moments as "Bush's Brain."  But now, even though his money machine, American Crossroads, was unable to elect a single conservative candidate on his personal list, he's decided to charge into the deepest quarters of his natural habitat   for what he clearly intends to be a game changing moment on the national runway.

Simply put, if that's possible, he wants to protect moderately conservative candidates from primary challenges from the horrific people who call President Obama a socialist born in a rain forest and say profoundly stupid things about women who have been raped.

Not that a man of Rove's towering presence  in the GOP hasn't managed to open a new front in the political wars.  The right wing that has guided the party through four-plus years of Barack Obama  is flapping loudly.    Their gurus are assailing him as a turncoat feeding at the Potomac trough and have begun to re-enlist their battered forces from the past campaign.  The torpedoes from the Club for Growth, the treasure house for political rightists,  are making the rounds on Fox News  and other sympathetic outlets to condemn Rove's plan. Names are being called on all sides.

From FreedomWorks, where Dick Armey reigned until recently, comes this troubling thought:  The Republican Party would be sapped of the energy and wisdom of guys like Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Pat Toomey and Mike Lee if Rove's designated hitters drive them from competitive races.

When they put it like that, I may find myself reluctantly agreeing with Rove on a one-time basis as he wanders into his familiar  divide-and-conquer comfort zone.  Do I really have a choice?

News from the battlefield

     FROM THE POST-ELECTION LEFTOVERS:

There's nothing that would snap our brief euphoric holiday from the presidential election more than the  report in the Columbus Dispatch that Gov. Kasich was asked at a news conference whether he would consider running for president. Well, as the Dispatch, Kasich's adulatory voice in the capital city, recorded his response:

"I haven't announced this yet but I have full intentions of running for re-election and I have a great job here as the  governor."

Sort of a non-denial denial, don't you think?   At least that's how it was interpreted down there with the paper noting: "He didn't rule it out."

Good grief!

                                                         * * * * *

We clipped and saved Glenn Beck's pre-election communication with God in setting the stage for a presumed President Romney: "I believe Mr. Romney prays on his knees every day.  I believe he is being guided [and his election Tuesday] would be a sign from God."  Shouldn't Beck have checked first with Nate Silver?

                                                        * * * * *

The Economist recently quoted the late  Ronald Reagan's view of Latinos thusly:

"Latinos are Republicans," Ronald Reagan is supposed to have said.   "They still don't know it yet."

Update to the iconic Gipper after the Latinos massive turnout for President Obama on
Tuesday:  They still don't.

                                                      * * * * *
 The conservative gurus, apparently carried away by wishful thoughts,  simply crashed in  their predictions.  George Will forecast a 321-217 electoral vote victory for Romney.  And alleged  analyst Dick Morris predicted a landslide for Mitt.  For high-paid talking heads, this was worse than embarrassing.  It might even be considered a defining moment for their political insights.


                                                       * * * * *
   
Finally, a picture is worth...


   

At least one positive side to Romney's gaffes?

Growing up in the newspaper business I was occasionally reminded by some older pros that it was bad manners - ungentlemanly, really - to  criticize other members of the press.  Newspapers generally are not comfortable about negative references to their line of work, particularly self-reported negative references to their line of work

So I will qualify today's Grumpy Abe's wisdom by saying it is not intended to be criticism but rather  entry level reporting about views expressed by another columnist.

FACT:  Such conservative stalwarts as Karl Rove and  Charles Krauthammer were stunned by Road Scholar Mitt Romney's widely reported gaffes on his overseas trip.  Rove said Mitt blew it; Krauthammer found the Republican candidate's verbal behavior  "incomprehensible," "unbelievable" and "beyond human comprehension."

But in fairness, I should also tell you that at least one editorial board conservative columnist at the Plain Dealer lauded Romney and blamed  his image problems on the always suspect national media.

So here, without further comment, is the conclusion of Kevin O'Brien, while admitting that one of my bad habits, culturally speaking,  is to occasionally read from the bottom up:

"The national media can't get over Obama, so they'll never be your friends.

"Final scorecard:  "You [Romney] visited allies we've badly neglected these last three years, said things that made sense and offended people who don't like you, anyway.

"Good road trip."

Take that, libs  Krauthammer and Rove!

The billion dollar (!) campaign against Obama

I READ THAT the Republican Voting for Dollars high command vigorously led by the Karl Roves will spend $1 billion to defeat  President Obama in November.  I can't honestly tell you how many zeroes follow the $1.  I spend more of my time rounding off the entries in  my checkbook to the nearest dollar.  But don't be surprised if some mathematician at MIT turns up on Fox News to give us a mental image of $1 billion by reporting that if you laid  $1 billion end to end, they would stretch all the way to the U.S.Chamber of Commerce,   various oil companies and,  of course, the Koch Brothers  before arriving with a new guy in the Oval Office.

The trouble with  billions and trillions is that even the modern financiers who toss around such figures have never really seen them. Nobody ever has.  In that sense, they are abstractions  that filter through the wealthiest levels of society as  imagined over the morning coffee. The mysterious figures are never precise because it is easy enough to round off the  dangling millions to make a billion come out even.

Who can appear as a news show panelist freely talking about $1,297, 082,093.36?  Nobody.  Not even Donald Trump. So if one of Mitt Romney's surrogates mentions a billion here and a billion there,  ask him to be more precise.  That will change the subject.

But come to think of it, if you drop the R from Mitt's last name, the remaining letters are an anagram of  money.  Now I think we're getting somewhere.

Rove & Groucho: No, no no

AS WE NOW await the decision on Obamacare by the right-wing Supreme Court - another leftover from the Bush Administration - my political diary turned up this quote from Karl Rove from August, 2009. Referring to the GOP's role in challenging President Obama, Rove asserted:

"This is going to be defined by Republican conservatives by what we oppose."

Unfortunately, with that game plan, Rove, also known as "Bush's brain," nailed it.

And so we've had a rebirth of Groucho Marx's unyielding position that "Whatever it is, I'm against it."

An awful way to run a country.

Obama's bin Laden mission accomplished

THE INK ON THE Osama bin Laden headlines had hardly dried before the rehab artists for former President Bush went into action to claim victory for their man. Led by the master of Grimms fairy tales, Karl Rove, if Bush hadn't laid the groundwork for bin Laden's capture, President Obama wouldn't be standing in front of the TV cameras to tell the world that the enemy was dead and gone. Hence, Bush/Cheney's defense of illegal torture was fully justified because that's what opened the way for Obama's follow-up success.

Or so it was claimed, despite more accuarate reporting that said the first clues to bin Laden's whereabouts came through normal interrogation of al-Qaeda operatives.

So be it. Believe what you like, with the understanding that the Rovian side of the Bush family is not giving up it's fictional narrative about its former boss. Here's what super sleuth George Bush said of his role in tracking down bin Laden on March 13, 2002:

"I don't know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don't care. It's not that important. It's not our priority."

The film clips show him shrugging off the question in a feathery manner as if to say , stop bothering me with such trivia. Can't you see that we're busy in Iraq?

Nothing demonstrated the stark difference in presidential demeanor between Bush and Obama than the moments of declaring good news. How can history forget a heroic Bush's wildly orchestrated landing in full flight gear on the aircraft carrier (The Abraham Lincoln!) to announce Mission Accomplished? . It was a photo album creation of a boastful unwavering leader who knew how to get it done. (On the other hand, the campaign rhetoric in 2008 warned that Obama couldn't get it done. Dick Cheney had no doubts that America's exposure to terrorists would be seriously heightened under Obama because it's the nature of Democrats to be soft on our enemies. The trash talking continues today among the die-hards.)

For good reason the self-ascending Bush visit to the aircraft carrier didn't become a national holiday. And eight years later to the day Obama , with presidential self-control befitting the office, walked to the microphone to soberly announce the bin Laden mission accomplished - a statement that electrified the world, if not his political enemies at home.

It was an important stop along the way on the war against terrorism. Obama did it without bells and whistles. Bush's version will remain in the hands of the Karl Roves for embellishment.

Life on the maniacal front

THE VOTE IS IN, AND by a tally of 1-0, Glenn Beck has been narrowly elected as the Maniac of the Week. He outlasted Karl Rove and Liz Cheney by a single slur. More about them later.

As he has shown in the past, Beck's need for public attention, a deranged cry for help that doubtless arose in his near-drowning years ago in a rain puddle, is no thing of beauty. (On the other hand, he's lucky. Turkeys are known to drown in rain puddles because they are too dumb to raise their heads). This week, against strong competition , Beck again exposed his pathetically vacuous self by taking on America's churches. Atheists have done that, too, albeit with more restraint, but Beck is no atheist (He's a Mormon, obviously still a work in progress.) According to this Fox News payroller, anybody who attends a church that has a regard for social justice is either a Nazi or a Communist. He wants these churchgoers to flee their contaminated pews immediately.

Next in line for the Maniac of the Week Award is Liz Cheney, one of William Kristol's stable of immortals, who has publicly accused Justice Department lawyers who are defending accused terrorists of being the "al-Qaeda 7" and the Justice Department as the "Department of Jihad." Even Ken Starr, who lead the impeachment team against former President Clinton, was outraged by her smears. But can we expect anything less from the daughter of Dick Cheney?

Finally, there is the indomitable Karl Rove in the second runner-up slot for boasting in Europe of his pride in the U.S. waterboarders and insisting that it was not torture - this, from a man who never wore a military uniform himself. Rove, who has been contradicted on so many occasions, is still an unhappy wanderer staggering to the darkness at the end of his tunnel.

"Bush's brain", is so troubled

KARL ROVE, the so-called "Bush's brain," went back up to Fox's robotic news spinner, to say that he was "troubled" by the Obama administration's response to the terrorist who wanted to blow up the plane from Europe. You sort of expect his repeated tongue-stomping to get attention. But if he took a single breath, he might recall who was president when they were crashing jets into buildings on 9/11, now that it has been established that his team from the Oval office ignored all warnings.

Karl Rove: Self-styled protocol chief in exile

KARL ROVE, who treats political history as opaque tales on prehistoric cave walls, was at it again over the week end from his pulpit on Fox News. Karl was quite troubled that President Obama had engaged in a courteous bow before the Japanese emperor. Accusing Obama of being on a world-wide "apology tour," Rove sniffed that Obama "simply can't get it right" adding: I think it's best if American presidents do what they have always done - which is to stand for our small 'r' republican values and do not bow to monarchies."

Karl, care to join me in a brief review of what your "small r" presidents have done? Pay attention:

Ronald Reagan: Seen dozing during a meeting with Pope John Paul II in Rome. Reagan's assistant, Jim Kuhn, explained. sort of: "For some reason, the pope's voice has a hypnotic effect on the president."

George H.W. Bush: Threw up on the Japanese prime minister in 1992.

George W. Bush: Approached German Chancellor Angela Merkel from behind at an official meeting in 2008 and clawed both of her shoulders as she responded with pained surprise. Ha! Ha! (At least he didn't towel-snap her.)

(Just for the hell of it, Karl, you might try "getting it right" yourself in your Sunday sermons. The "r's" in your name just got smaller. )

Rove's GOP: The Grand Opposition Party

HOW ABOUT that fellow Karl Rove. While we were busy finding fault with him as a slippery back-alley dealer, he pops up at a fund-raiser in Utah to deliver an honest assessment of his party. The statement, which should be bronzed:

"This year is going to be defined by Republicans and conservatives by what we oppose."

That ringing endorsement of the Party of No comes awfully close to what Groucho Marx once asserted:

"Whatever it is, I'm against it."

The Frankensteins stalk the Rhumba Queen

OVERHEARD AT a meeting of right-wing talk show hosts, a few southern Republican senators on the Judiciary Committee and some lobbyists in a private bar on K Street:

Subject A: Whew! that Soto-mooer is a cool bitch. Nothing rattles her.

Subject B: Yeah, she's one of them wise Latinas herself and ain't like any of them dumb Spics that violate our borders every day.

Subject C: I hear ya. But y'all folks, we're running out of time with the confirmation hearings. We've got to find a way to put the Rhumba Queen in her place. Or it will be just a matter of time before white males are barred from sitting at the counters of one of them cheap diners.

Subject B: Yeah, it crossed my mind. But we don't seem to be making much progress with these hearings. Before you know it she'll be cha-cha-ing on the Capitol steps with Leahy.

Subject D: Gentlemen, gentlemen! We've got some heavy lifting to do. Maybe Pat Buchanan is right. Maybe we should really destroy ol' Carman Miranda with nastier questions.

(pause in the action)

Subject A: How about this? Is there anything in the dossiers to suggest that she is empathetic with Santa Annie's attack on the Alamo? That would play big in my state. Ya know. Like one amigo to another?

Subject E: Hmmm...Interesting point. But I don't know of her doing the Mexican hat dance with Santa Annie.

Subject B: Doesn't have to be true. But we could say it in a way to give it legs on Fox News. They'll run up the flag on anything that pops the libs. Look, we're trying to score some points with our own amigos for the 2010 elections. This in no way will change the outcome of the hearings. . But we should try to get whatever mileage from them that we can. We could have Al Gonzalez haul out the Sonee-Santa Annie link at rallies and ---

Subject A: Whoa, there, Senor. Did y'all say Gonzo? We daren't go there. No way, no how.

(pause)

Subject D: Here's an idea...Why don't we call Dick Cheney and see if he knows of a way to have the feminazi Spic waterboarded to answer our questions, like whether she is a Porter Rican lesbo. I've been told lesbos hate white males. So let's play the lesbo card. It couldn't hurt.

Subject C: In executive session, of course.

Subject A: By all means. By all means.

Subject B: Ole! I think it's coming together. We can even ask Rove to reference the lesbo thing on a Sunday morning talk show. Ya know. Just mention it casually to plant a few seeds and let Glenn Beck take it from there. .

Subject D: Right. By golly, it's falling into place!. It's coming together. I think we've got it.

This could cha-cha better than accusing Obama of being born in a rain forest.

Subject E: And by the way, do we rally know where the Tamale Terrorist was born?

All: Call Rove!!!!

The Goebbels Gang rants at Sotomayor

THESE HAVE BEEN  noisily frantic days for the Goebbels Gang in the Republican Party.  On cue, the gassier ones pounced on Sonia Sotomayor as an evil dragon lady created in President Obama's secret laboratory to fatally pollute their Gem of the Ocean.  For some reason, the attacks lacked spontaneity but rather suggested a well rehearsed twittered ambush  by the Gang's  generals and seasoned line officers who have performed so ignobly since the run-up to Obama's election.  (The Inquisition  even raised questions whether her Hispanic food tastes  might seriously affect her judicial decisions! You see where we are on this.)     

The effusive propaganda has been aimed directly at charming its captive audience, the Republican Base, a rather truculent minority that responds to right-wing hysterics with Pavlovian froth.  The trick is to keep the base fully mobilized to become a coherent force to recapture the GOP's "core values" with a third of the electorate. The inspiration may lie in a late poll of by a conservative website managed by  lobbyist Richard Viguerie, an influential Beltway  tax cut pest. The survey indicated that 91 pct. of the nation's conservatives believe that Obama belongs in one of four anti-American categories: Socialist, Marxist, Communist or Fascist.  Some of the dumber respondents will argue that he is all of the above. 

So you can see that the Goebbels Gang needs little encouragement to slander Sotomayor, of Puerto Rican descent,  as a stupid off-white woman   - this, from a party without a single African American in the House or Senate and an embarrassing one on the U.S. Supreme Court who reportedly hasn't asked a single question from his loft in three years.  

Before we reach again for the aspirin bottle,   let's tune in on Karl Rove, who was clearly not impressed with Sotomayor's superb academic distinction of Summa Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Princeton  who went on to preside over the Yale Law School Journal.  Rove needs a rest after he huffed:  "I know a lot of stupid people who went to Ivy League Schools."  In fairness, it was a busy day and he could be excused for overlooking his former boss. 

There's more.  "She's a bigot!  She's a racist," ranted Rush Limbaugh.  "She should be stopped,  She's a horrible pick!'"  Pat Buchanan, MSNBC's omnipresent Archie Bunker with a track record of demeaning immigrants, Jews and other minorities ,  impatiently  accused her of being  "not that intelligent".   Pat Robertson came out of mothballs  and  hastily concluded that Sotomayor "was the worst of them all."  Newt Gingrich flat out called her a racist - imagine that from a guy who cut his ideological teeth in Georgia.  Liz Cheney was quite disturbed that Sotomayor would make judicial decisions based on her "heart or empathy" adding, '"I think that's dangerous."

 

Whooa, there Liz.   Don't you remember that President George H.W. Bush, in nominating Clarence Thomas, described him as  a "delightful and warm, intelligent person who has great empathy and a wonderful sense of humor."

Empathy?  It's something the Goebbels Gang never had - and never will.   

Grassroots? Where are the roots?

Derided by elitists as  phony, the tea-party movement is spontaneous..." - Karl Rove

A FEW NIGHTS ago   I had dinner with a  fellow who said his paycheck is a bit healthier these days because of the tax cuts arriving via the Obama Administration.  He said others in his company had experienced the same benefit. No one was prepared to make a down payment on a new yacht or a Lear jet, but all had more dollars  in their pockets.  Would anybody deny that these income tax cuts embraced all middle income taxpayers from California to New York? 

Well, yes. Indeed, if you listened to the rants on tea-party day, the President's policies are drenching all Americans with steep federal tax increases.   Karl Rove, a political survivor whose wallet will never deny him a good meal enhanced by a job with the Fox megaphone,  insists America is entering a new phase when the common folks aren't going to put up with runaway "tax-and-spend government".    Republicans like the sound of tax-and-spend because it has been around on their calling cards since the days of Herbert Hoover. Meantime, Republican presidents have spent and spent.  Or didn't they tell you that? 

Rove and his cohorts, who slammed us with eight years of George Bush,  are in denial.  They have no options left but to tell us, when the occasion calls for it, that Thursday is Saturday and Monday is Wednesday, and the dark spot on the moon is a wayward cow. Now they are selling "spontaneous " tax revolts that would be quite agreeable to winning elections for their brand of conservative Republicans down the road.   

Spontaneous?    For Rupert Murdoch's Fox News,  such imagined impromptu tea bagging was such a seductive thought to rabble-rouse that the  station's incendiary talk show hosts sold it endlessly to their  audience  with the vigor of those bombastic used-car commercials.  Joining the "grass-roots" assault on the White House was an old pro at this sort of nonsense:  Dick Armey, the former Texas congressman who is now the head of an outfit called FreedomWorks, another of the right-wing enterprises that confuses patriotism with Wounded Knee.  

All of the old crowd were out there sellin' their wares:  Newt Gingrich, whose curse we must bear because he has yet to find a job that will get him entirely out of the way; Phil Gramm, an inspired deregulator, a vice chairman of UBS (which is being investigated for serious tax fraud)  and a super-rich Texan, who got his share of income as a senator from oppressed taxpayers;  Tom DeLay, another discredited Texan  who smiles painfully when  Chris Matthews toys with DeLay's loopy invasions of reality.    

If there were anyone big enough to lead a fragmented McParty these days, he or she would promote a series of Smart Parties around the country that would begin with the premise that nothing is working for the GOP's good these days, so maybe it ought to consider something more sensible as the loyal opposition.   At the moment it is nothing more than a composite of silly free-lancers on the right who have kidnapped the GOP as their own private plantation where they grow peculiar ideologies from barren soil.  A party cannot survive with the wealthy alone.  

So be alert when you see grassroots as the key to the party's revival.  If  the tea parties were the domain of the future look of the party - white Obama-haters with Hitler-Obama posters - the slugs have eaten the roots and converted the lawn into a rollup carpet.  

. 

Rove :Bush's brain drain?

ISN'T THERE  anything we can - or should - do about Karl Rove? In the final drab days of the Bush administration, Rove continues to show up here and there much like a maniacal Robert De Niro in "Cape Fear" just when you think he's been dispatched forever.  There are now reports that Rove is busily engaged in the Bush Legacy Project, a diehard mission to reveal Bush as a regular good  guy for the historians and public.  The other day Rove dismissed the critics, which now include about 80 pct. of Americans, as being the natural consequence of hanging out in the Oval Office for eight years.  As he explained it to Matt Lauer, "Look at the end of eight years...Republicans or Democrats...people tire of it." Right. 

Karl's been around longer than that himself, and now appears to be on a roll to humiliate his own once little-challenged reputation  as the political genius at the end of the yellow brick road.    But unlike many Americans who are more tired of being economically splattered and out of work, Karl is gainfully employed in some conservative quarters to be the yeast in a post-presidential rise of George Walker Bush.  His latest task of rehabbing Bush could be the most daunting, somewhat like reclaiming the hulk of the Titanic.  

 Does anybody remember  his pollyanna view in  2006 of how Republicans would retain control of the Senate and House, a notion revealed to him by his own mysterious polls?  Or that he was a sort-of silent partner in McCain's campaign apparatus with a lot of cheery talk on Fox?  

If I remember Thomas Aquinas'  first-cause argument for the existence of God, he said no event causes itself.  It was so pre-Rovian.   Karl seems to cause himself every moment of the day.

For him it has never been whether you win or lose but how you taint the game.  During the Bush years he was regularly described as "Bush's Brain."  For his own place in history, George could have chosen a brain more carefully.