Maybe I am losing my edge. Maybe I am just not an enormous nerd, like Howard Kurtz. I don’t know. But, I can’t get excited about the staff shakeups at the White House. Frankly, reading Kurtz’s enthuisiasm kinda made me throw up a little.
…for those who are paid to analyze and scrutinize the direction of the White House, it doesn’t get much better than this. A new chief of staff, a new press secretary, and a revised portfolio– be still, my heart –for the president’s most powerful strategist.
All that and a Fox News host coming in too?
Why, enterprising Beltway journalists might just be able to milk this story for weeks on end. By which time we can all go on summer vacation.
The big story is supposed to be about Karl Rove getting some kind of demotion. He lost his policy portfolio…or so the story goes. You know what? I don’t give a fuck. Karl Rove belongs in shackles. Until I see Karl Rove in shackles I won’t be joining Howard Kurtz on any vacations. Kurtz says:
Hint: Liberals are near-ecstatic…
For the record, I’m checking to see if I even have a pulse. From what I can tell, the only benefit to ‘demoting’ Karl is that right-wing newspapers can write drivel like this:
“The shift of Mr. Rove out of his second-term role as deputy chief of staff for policy could help address a separate problem: concern that White House policies too often are perceived as partisan and divisive.”
It’s almost impossible to read analysis like that and not regurgitate my breakfast. It used to be amusing to watch the press do their their little dance with the White House. At this point, it just makes me cringe. Everyone knows they have committed impeachable offenses. Everyone knows that we overlook such crimes at our peril. Everyone knows that Karl Rove lied to a grand jury, to the FBI, to Scottie McClellan, to the American people, and (possibly) to the President. How long are we going to pretend we are not in a constitutional crisis? How long are we going to pretend that Iraq is improving, or can improve?
And then there is this asshole McClellan. McClellan announces, “I have given it my all, sir,” and the press goes all soft on him. Listen up!! This man, Scottie McClellan, lied to you every day for three years on virtually every question that you raised with him. He didn’t resign in disgust at what he was being asked to do. He gleefully stood there and lied, over and over and over again. And he wasn’t any good at it. So, he not only lied to you, in your face, repeatedly…but he badly insulted your intelligence while he was doing it.
Now, you will excuse this as ‘just what Press Secretaries do”. That is the whole problem with Howard Kurtz and the rest of the Beltway reporters. They saw Joe Lockhart lie about a blow job and now they think its okay for a press secretary to lie about anything.
McClellan’s list of big lies is very impressive. He lied about the rationale for war, about the Plame investigation, about our torture policies, about our rendition policies, about the nature of Iraq resistance…anything important, he lied about.
…former colleagues of McClellan, an affable Texan who has worked for Bush since he was governor, say he acquitted himself well in what has become an increasingly difficult and contentious job.
He LIED well badly, in a job, under Bush, that involved nothing but LYING. I’m tired of it. The policies of this administration are one thing. Their political strategy and contempt for the English language and everyday American’s intelligence, is another.
Demoting Rove and dumping McClellan will do nothing to change the fact that we are losing a war in Iraq that we should not have begun. It won’t stop the illegal surveillance of anti-Bush activists. It won’t get Congress to investigate this President and his quail-hunting sidekick. Howard Kurtz says I’m ecstatic. Fuck him.
