Wizard of Oz

[Lightning Rod]

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"Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore."

I watched Karl Rove appearing on one of the Sunday morning shows this week. He was glowing from the Republican victory of which Bush, in his recent news conference, called Rove 'the architect.'

It's hard to argue with success. Karl Rove is an obviously capable puppet master. In this election campaign the Bush camp was marching in lock step with constant iterations of the same simple but understandable message. As I watched Rove deliver the calm and familiar party line, which he invented, I thought of the Emerald City of Oz. "Don't pay any attention to the man behind the curtain."

Bush would be just a 'nuffin', his head all full of stuffin' if it weren't for Karl Rove and the rest of the neocon crew who are in charge of our government today. Because you didn't only vote for George Bush last week. You also voted for those he brings with him. You voted for a set of men behind the curtain who are ideologues like Paul Wolfowitz, expert bureaucrats like Rumsfeld and regulators who are working for the industries and interests that they pretend to regulate (Cheney). The vote was to install the foxes as guardians of the henhouse.

Karl Rove and I have a few things in common. We both spent a great deal of time in Texas. We were both Young Republicans (but I got over it.) We both went to college but never graduated in favor of larger goals. Neither of us are too fond of following the rules. But if I only had a brain, I would want it to be like Karl Rove's. I'm sure he could beat Bobby Fischer or Joseph Goebbels at chess. He is Svengali, Rasputin, Machiavelli and Cardinal Richelieu rolled into one.

Rove's political journey stretches from Watergate to today as a master of dirty tricks. He has been behind the curtain in the administratrions of Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush I and then he fell in love with George Jr. He immediately saw that W was just his kind of political property--a brightly colored parrot with great family credentials, reasonable stage presence, a strong jaw and an empty head. He thought he was in Oz. The ventriloquist had found his dummy.

In Bush's campaign for governor of Texas against Ann Richards, which Rove ran, they successfully painted Richards as a lush cocaine sniffer (which is rich, considering the source of those accusations) just like they successfully painted John Kerry in this election as being an indecisive flip-flopper. Rove's credo from then till now has been 'go negative early and often.' George Shipley, Richards' campaign advisor, said, "We did not believe that Bush would be as disciplined as he was. He was extremely disciplined. Karl gave him 10 index cards and said, 'This is what you are going to say. Don't confuse yourself with the issues.'"

And this is another reason that the match (I hesitate to say civil union) between Karl Rove and G. Bush is so perfect: Bush doesn't confuse himself with the issues. He let's Rove worry about them.

Bush calls Rove his 'Boy Genius.' He also calls him "Turd Blossom." This is Texanese for a flower that blooms from cattle excrement. For those of you who aren't familiar with the flora and fauna of Texas, the flower that grows out of a cow patty is a purple psychedelic mushroom. These mushrooms will make you understand Oz.

Robert Heinlein wrote a book about the invasion of Earth by a race from outer space. It was called The Puppet Masters. The aliens were slug-like creatures that would attach themselves to the back of a human just between the shoulder blades and insert a tap root into the victim's spinal chord thereby controlling him. The famous picture of Bush at the podium in the first presidential debate with the obvious bulge under his coat just between the shoulder blades reminds me of The Puppet Masters. In the book all the citizens had to go naked from the waist up to reveal which ones were being controlled. But we're not in Kansas anymore, Toto. And it's not a sci-fi novel or a mushroom dream either. This is real.

The Poet's Eye will be watching the men behind the curtain.

[stilltrucking]

clay

We were both Young Republicans (but I got over it.)

Are you sure about that? Sometimes you make me wonder.

And this is another reason that the match (I hesitate to say civil union)

Rove is a sweet man they say, a kind and loving father, a faithful husband, a good neighbor. Do you think there is some hanky panky going on there? Yeah the main stream media is always so quick to put out what a nice guy he is. Just one little character flaw, he is not quite human, I don't even think he is a mammal. Marsupial maybe.


Four years clay, about three years and two months, but here it is. Election time again.

Good Eye clay,