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War

Rover Lost in Paradise
by P. Thomas Harker
May 28, 2003

Try this on.

President “W” has the insight and intelligence of the average small town letter-to-the-editor writer: simple understandings of complex problems; simple explanations of causes; simple remedies; unassailable notions of who is to blame, and unbounded faith in the righteousness of his own simplistic position.

If the Freedom of Information act would allow access to “W’s” school records, I would expect his IQ to be “low average” ; I’ve read an estimate of 91. Having taught school for thirty-one years, I concur with the estimate.

That is not to say that the brilliant vampires surrounding our president are not bright bulbs; they know exactly what they are doing! It is a marriage made in hell ( with Carl Rove playing Lucifer).

Bush is the perfect shill for the nastiness of the neo-cons. The dark forces of the Empire (Darth Cheney, Grand Marshall Wolfowitz, Perle, Kristol, et. al.) can hide their sneers behind the scenes while Skeletor Rumsfeld works his petulant humor on the venal press corps. Knowing all the while that the idiot-boy-presidential front man will make everything OK.

Let’s face it, mathematically, statistically – by definition – most people are “average.” So, when it comes to “W,” what’s the surprise ? But the brilliant Carl “Lucifer” Rove apparently has been pissed off with God for some time and has used his considerable talents in planning his revenge. According to recent books, Rove, early on, saw his chance to ride a bullet-headed, born-again, disconnected, slacker with a recognizable name to the luminous, cosmic heights a man like Rove feels he deserves.

As the nuns taught: Satan is always lurking and plotting ways to lead us innocents astray; and as Lincoln taught: you can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time.

The people who are fooled all the time, let’s face it, aren’t too smart. Generally and numerically, it’s the average folks you can fool some of the time; and Rove not only liked those odds, but masterfully planned to exploit and extend them – if not to the level of “fool them all the time,” at least “until after “W” gets re-elected.”

And boy! Is it working!

Average “jock-American” men everywhere (of all ages, including the beer-bellied and balding) – those who, if they read newspapers at all, read only parts of the sports pages – identify with and love “W”. Empty-eyed, sparkling-toothed Christian women have wet dreams over their Prince Charming (emulating his vapid soul-mate, Laura). At the same time, both genders of the economically-privileged ranks slobber at the thought of their average-richboy-done-good’s unassailable determination to increase their class’s largess.

The NASCAR set pillories the Dixie Chicks. Good old boys at the AMVETS and the VFW lift glasses in salute to the good old boy in D.C. who’s cutting funding for veterans. Parents of soldiers killed in “W’s” re-election war sing his praises (the one who didn’t got straightened out real fast). Fox “News” leads in the cable ratings, and any screw up’s by “W” that can’t be hidden from public scrutiny are blamed on Clinton.

Yep. It’s working.

As nationally syndicated Froma Harrop said in a recent column aimed more narrowly at W’s tax-cut-for-the-wealthy plans: “Misleading the public . . . is not a crime. Manipulation may not be a pretty thing, but it’s legal. The middle class won’t start feeling the effects until after the 2004 election, when there will be no political consequences for Bush [or Rove] . . . And voters will face the painful truth that they only have themselves to blame.”

Just like the small town letter writer, too many Americans get up off their dead asses only when a particularly specific pain intrudes upon their torpor. Then, when they are finally moved to think, they don’t have a clue and spout off with something that makes sense only in the local bar, diner, coffee klatch, or the locally available clear-channel talk show. Carl Rove knows that, and it’s the basis of his debauched manipulation of the “good old folks” among us.

It’s brilliant (if not original!): In every way possible encourage the proletariat’s involvement in their own destruction! Hoist the unwashed with their own petard! Offer them the opportunity to close the circuit on their own electrocution! Use them! Exploit them! Make fools of them! Then laugh, and revel in your own cleverness!

Most of us are like the proverbial frog in the pot of cool water set upon the stove. The heat rises so gradually that, as we loll there thinking our frogy thoughts, we don’t notice the rising temperature until it is too late, and we’re cooked!!

I’m a strong believer in the proposition that, on average, we get what we deserve, but those of us who are average need to try harder. We don’t deserve George W. Bush. And nobody deserves Carl Rove and the consequences of his personal Paradise Lost syndrome.

Forget letters to the editor, and pay no attention to the knucklehead behind the malapropisms – even if he does seem so damnably normal and average and good and reverent – just like us and our acquaintances!!

He’s a wooden-headed dummy in the hands of Lucifer!

Jump out of the pot!