WHAT-WOULD-BILLY-BEANE-DO...

...if he were Howard Dean? He would thank his lucky stars that Karl Rove resigned his postion in the Bush administration. And then he would offer Rove a 2-year, incentives-laden contract, for a good, but not outrageous salary to give the Democrats some spine and win progressively. He would do this with the full knowledge of all of the damage Karl Rove has caused these last seven years. Kelso would not even be thinking along these lines if the Democratic cave-in on FISA, christ, on just about everything hadn't convinced him that Rove WON the 2006 mid-terms. And that some SERIOUS spine is needed. Dean would sign Rove right up -- someonewho could shove a progressive agenda without fear or let-up down America's throat just the way he did a fascist agenda for Bush to this point.

Does that sound strange? Kelso supposes it does and doesn't suppose it ever will happen but what if it did? Why though is it really so strange? Was Rove ever such an ideologue that he really gave a crap? Kelso thinks no way. Rove is a competitor. An out-of-the-closet "agnostic" competitor. An only slightly in-the-closet gay competitor. Someone who'd never permit Reid to let Feingold and Leahy dangle. Someone who could tell Pelosi what to do and how to do it. Shit, he elected her to do what he wanted for Bush. He can tell her what to do for Clinton or Edwards or anybody. If Dean can make a good case to Rove that he'd be happier in the Democratic Party, as an agnostic and as a homosexual, and would have a lucrative and interesting challenge ahead of him AND could perhaps avoid a subpoena or two, Rove would jump. Could he have enjoyed being called "turdblossom" by his boss?

They say Rove is a genius. That sounds a little extreme. He's certainly not a genius in the Einstein or Freud sense. As a political strategist and tactician, though, he's one of the best ever and way better than the assembly of clowns the Democrats have relied upon: Brazile, Carville, Emmanuel, Estrich, Gergen, Greenberg, Morris, Penn, and Shrum...plus a cast of 1000s. He had two jobs to do and two jobs only: win by any means necessary in 2000 and 2004. When he hooked up with Bush he didn't dwell on Bush's shortcomings -- lazy, terrible public speaker, without any education or class at all -- and instead focused on what were Bush's assets: likeable, competitive, somewhat modest, a fairly quick study, and rich, rich, rich. When time came to run for the presidency, the well-read Rove saw a pretty robust historical analog in the Mark Hanna-President McKinley-Hearst-Spanish-American War model which threw of something like 28 years of Republican domination. He would be Mark Hanna. Bush would be McKinley. Murdoch would be Hearst. Iraq would be the Spanish American War. Not a perfect fit exactly but at least Rove went in with a plan. What exactly was Donna Brazile's plan? What was Bob Shrum's plan?

The first hurdle was John McCain, coming off a big win in New Hampshire and all the credibility you could ever want, and some kind of war hero shit, and a lot of Democrats and Independent sitting on ready to vote for the guy. Maybe Rove is not a genius but he figured out sometime probably earlier than 1999 something about McCain that the public and the press just figured out within the last month or so. McCain is a bully, a coward and a cry-baby with a montrous ego. So, instead of getting scared, Rove got tough and hit McCain between the eyes in South Carolina. He had danced with McCain through Iowa and New Hampshire, but come SC, he put McCain away by playing tough and not terribly dirty to be fair. McCain was not used to be attacked and he wasn't used to being attacked personally and if any progressives out there think Rove and Bush did fight dirty, didn't McCain deserve every bit of the punishment? We'll go for a tortured sports analogy here but it was very much like Muhammad Ali versus George Foreman in Zaire in 1975. We'll let Muhammad Ali tell the story:

"Everybody stop talking now, I tell ya....I told you, all of my critics, I told you all that I was the greatest of all time... Now just listen...I told you today, I'm still the greatest of all time...never again defeat me...never again say that I'm going to be defeated...never again bet and make me an underdog, until I'm about 50 years old. Then you might get me. But I didn't dance, I didn't dance for a reason. I wanted to make him lose all his power, I kept tellin' he had no punch, he couldn't hit, he swang like a sissy, he's missin', let me see you box, I hadn't start dancin' yet! You can't say my legs are gone, you can't say I was tired, because what happened? I didn't dance from the second round on. I stayed on the ropes. When I stay on the ropes, you think I'm doin' bad. But I want all boxers to put this in the page of boxing: staying on ropes is a beautiful thing with a heavyweight when you make him shoot his best shot, and you know he's not hittin' ya. I would've gave George Foreman two rounds of steady punchin', because after that he was mine."

And so it was with McCain. Bush absolutely owned him the rest of the way. Whether Rove preferred to face Gore or Bradley in the general election we might not ever know, but once Gore chose Lieberman as his running mate, Rove had Bush go back to rope-a-dope and positioned Bush to Gore's left, and sad-sack that he was, Gore went for it all the way. The election was fought on Republican turf -- who could be less like Clinton? (How the fuck did Rove manage to pull that one off?) -- to the point that BUSH, FUCKING BUSH, destroyed Gore in the debates. Lieberman did his thing and just sucked Cheney's dick. Everyone of Rove's moves worked but Gore still won. So, they stole the damned thing with full Democratic complicity. Rove got a little lucky to be fair in 2004 when Dean stalled in Iowa, but Kerry didn't even put up the fight Gore did. He conceded before the votes were counted. No, fuck that. He lost the election when he showed up at the Democratic National convention in his tin soldier get-up. And even then, Kerry won but Rove stole it again, with Kerry practically giddy with delight at Bush's magnificent victory. Mustn't appear too partisan to Tim Russert, you know.

2006, though, was perhaps Rove's finest hour. He knew he had a loser all the way, so he limited his losses, held plenty of money back, knowing that Nancy Pelosi and Joe Lieberman would do his job for him, giving him, with Blue-Dog help, an effective majority in Congress even in the minority. Why should he feel otherwise? Pelosi's daughter made a Bush campaign movie and Lieberman had been one of the most reliable Republicans in the Senate. A loss for Rove? Hardly. Has anything happened that would make someone think that the Republican Party had lost the Congress?

So, Karl, how about it? You did enough to mess your country up good. It's time now to make amends, to try a new challenge in an environment where agnosticism, intellect and same-sex desire are considered normal. You'll get a tall stack of chips. You'll get to elect a new President. And with some luck you and Howard Dean will cement a permanent Democratic majority.

Kelso's Nuts love you