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CounterPunch
November
7, 2002
Inside Karl
Rove's Election Night Diary
by BERNARD WEINER
Now, THAT was fun! The liberals never knew what
hit 'em. Clueless, those guys.
But, based on our polling and focus groups,
your's truly knew weeks ago. That's why I could safely send George
out on the hustings for that last-minute pick-me-up to the GOP
troops. (The Prez wasn't happy about having to work, and disrupting
his nap patterns, but he sure appreciates my plan now.)
The boy genius rides again. Sure feels
good. I needed to redeem myself big time after blowing the Jim
Jeffords thing, which threw our whole agenda into disarray.
But now it's clear sailing. Thank you,
Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. We rode those bogeymen into
the sunset. I was worried that maybe we were too obvious and
the electorate might see through what we were doing. But no worry;
by playing up the possibility of new terror attacks and the evil
Saddam, the fear factor worked, and the American citizenry marched
in lockstep, giving us whatever we wanted.
Our friends in the media kept all that
sinking-economy news off the front pages, and all our scandals
as well (I loved the way I orchestrated Harvey Pitt's resignation,
dropped right into the election coverage and nobody even noticed),
and then, thank you Lord!, the D.C. sniper came along and dominated
the news cycles for several weeks just before the vote. And he
was even named "Muhammed"! Couldn't have asked for
a better script.
And the best part was that the Dems didn't
know what to do. They were so unbelievably disspirited and disorganized.
They wanted to slam us on the Iraq issue but couldn't or they'd
risk revealing themselves for the unpatriotic wimps they are,
so a lot felt obliged to vote with us. When key Dem leaders like
Daschle and Gephardt and Feinstein and Kerry voted with us, I
knew the election was in the bag.
Those stupid liberals had no unified
program to offer in opposition to ours -- and, what's more important,
no balls. The September 11 events are still working their magic
for us, just as we thought they would. (And now, given the election
results, we can be assured that there will be no independent
investigation of our behavior or the coverup. We're home free!)
Well, sure, we've still got to work with
the Dems in the Senate, who could, if they decide they're going
to put up a fight, cause trouble for our legislation. But, I
think we can roll enough of them to get the required 60 votes
when we have to.
We'll get our judges approved, we'll
get the tax cut made permanent for our friends, we'll change
the composition of the Supreme Court (goodbye, Roe v. Wade!),
ANWAR here we come with our drilling rigs, and on to Baghdad.
(If we really want to go there; we don't need to now. We could
get the U.N. inspectors in there and finesse our way out of having
to invade.)
The added bonus of our electoral sweep
is that we're in good shape for the 2004 race. Jeb's in place,
and Liddy might be a dynamite partner for George. A Bush-Dole
ticket! Now, that's brilliant! We'll carve the womens' vote away
from the Dems. They can keep the Jews and the blacks and Arabs.
The Dems ain't goin' anywhere for a long time. We're in like
Flynn for at least six more years, with Jeb to follow.
We've got the Congress, we've got the
White House, we've got the Supreme Court, we've got the media
in our pockets. And all the Dems have to oppose us is a few predictable
malcontents, an insignifcant peace movement (which we can always
ruin with some of our undercover guys engineering some violence),
and some wackos writing on the internet.
Given our election sweep, Ashcroft can
take care of all those traitors, without having to look over
his shoulder all the time. John is so happy; he was smarting
about having lost to a dead man in the last election, but the
Carnahan widow is no more.
Of course, it's possible that we've stirred
up a hornet's nest and the Dems will be galvanized to reorganize
themselves into a true opposition. (Gephardt probably will resign
as House Minority Leader -- I don't blame him: Nobody wants to
have to do daily battle against that obnoxious, but effective,
buzzsaw Tom Delay).
But I doubt it. They're too frightened
and scattered, and they just don't have the troops behind them
in the electorate to give them courage. Nor do they have a real
leader; Daschle and Gephardt abdicated when they voted for the
Iraq war. Wellstone could have been the rally-around guy, but,
sorry for him great for us, he's gone.
No need to worry. We're in the driver's
seat for the next six years, and probably beyond, and our political
enemies are just going to have to get used to it. If not, we'll
destroy them totally. This is going to be so much fun!
Bernard Weiner,
Ph.D., is co-editor of the new online political site CrisisPapers.org,
has taught American politics and international relations at San
Diego State and Western Washington Universities, and was with
the San Francisco Chronicle for nearly 20 years.
Yesterday's
Features
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Don't
Mourn, Bake!
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Bush: Left-Liberal?
William Evan
A Diplomatic
Strategy
How Carter and Castro Could Avert War on Iraq
William A. Cook
Blinded
by the Right
Pierre Tristam
Hypocrisy
at Camp Delta
Mayor Walid Hamad
Settlers
and Trash
Matt Siegfried
Questions
of War
Alexander Cockburn and
Jeffrey St. Clair
Nosedive:
the Democrats the Day After
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October 26
/ 27, 2002
Michael Wolff
A Place
of Tears
Ilija Trojanow
Bali Mon Amour
Ben Tripp
Crocodile Tears
Hope Shand and Silvia Ribeiro
The Great Containment:
GM Fallout from Mexico to Zambia
M. Junaid
Alam
The Wolf Who Cried Wolf:
Charging Anti-Semitism & Extending the Iron Wall
Gavin Keeney
The Fusion Thing:
Landscape + Architecture
Adam Engel
A Good Man is Hard to Misfit
Anis Shivani
Is America Becoming Fascist?
Jason Leopold
Is Thomas White Fit to Lead the Army?
Philip Farruggio
Let Them Eat (Crumb) Cake
Josh Frank
The Grassroots of Hope
Anthony Gancarski
Concerned Citizen: episode 5
Night School
M. Shahid
Alam
The Civilizing Mission
October 25, 2002
Wayne Madsen
Pappy
Bush on Wellstone:
"Who Is This Chickenshit?"
Stuart Timmons
Harry
Hay Dead at 90:
He Paved the Way for Modern Gay Activism
Vanessa Jones
Australia
Votes Green:
Historic No Vote to US War Plans
Ben Terrall
Rep.
Tom Lantos' Big Lie
Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
Behind
the Drive for War:
The Escalating Bush Military Budget
Will Youmans
Israel's and Divestment
Norman Madarasz
Lula
on the Verge
October 24,
2002
Jo Freeman
How the
Christian Coalition Boosts Israel
Ben Tripp
George
W.: Caught Between Iraq and a Hard Place
Harry Browne
Ireland's Dreary Yes to Nice
Anis Shivani
A Guide
for the Perplexed:
the Major Countries of the World as Defined by the Office of
Strategic Influence
T.W. Croft
America's
New Improved War
William Hughes
A Free
Press, But for Whom?
Alan Farago
Jeb Bush and the Environment
October 23,
2002
Daniel Wolff
Pataki,
Witt and the Indian Point Nuke
Wayne Madsen
A Saudiless
Arabia
Sam Bahour
and Paul de Rooij
Abritrary
Imprisonment
Chris White
Why I Oppose
the US War on Terror:
an ex-Marine Sergeant Speaks Out
Anthony Gancarski
Back to Bali
Adam Engel
Twilight
(of the Idols) Zone
Robert Fisk
How to Shut Up Your Critics
October 22,
2002
Jack McCarthy
A Letter
to C. Hitchens
Carol Norris
This Message
Brought to You by Breast Cancer, Inc.
Joanne Mariner
Just
Say "Not Until We're Married":
Legislating Morality and Understanding HIV/AIDS Prevention
Kathleen Christison
Excuse Me?
How Israel Justifies Killing Palestinians
Linda Heard
Iraq War
Mongering:
A Game of Chess with Lives at Stake
Roger Peacock
Marketing the War on Iraq
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
CounterPunch:
Complete
Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath
Five
Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By
Alexander Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Photos by Allan Sekula
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Online at 20% Off Amazon.com's price!)
Read
Whiteout and Find Out
How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
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