Larisa: 'Rove Determined To Strike In The US'

Larisa Alexandrovna has been away -- either on vacation [?!] or chasing a big story [!?] -- and we've certainly missed her. As regular readers of her blog already know, she's also been ill, and I'm sure I speak for a great many people when I wish her better health immediately.

The good news is: She's ba-a-a-a-ck!! Savagely funny and right-on-the-mark in her latest blog item:

"Karl Rove determined to strike in the US"

Karl Rove apparently has direct access to terrorists or at least their play book, because he knows something that even experts seem not to know: what the terrorists are thinking.

"We are foolish if we think we can turn away from this threat and draw inward, and they will not come," President Bush's chief political strategist told an audience of about 400 at the Mount Union Theater. "If we lose, they will follow," he said.

I think this advice should have been taken during the end of the Nixon era in which apparently our national nightmare had just begun. Had Nixon not been pardoned, then his little mob would have likely followed him to the slammer, including Mr. Rove. Instead, "they" have followed us for the last 30+ years. But I will ask again, and continue to ask, since no member of Congress appears to have this question on the tip of his or her tongue for some odd reason: why does a political hit man running campaigns have the highest level clearances?

That question is easy to answer, at least from the point of view of those who want the political hit man to have the highest level clearances: Because knowledge is power. It's really that simple.

The more difficult question, the one Larisa is surely asking, is: Why do we allow it?

And the answer to that one, I believe, was best articulated by Joseph Heller, when asked about all the interwoven themes of his novel Catch-22. Heller interrupted the question, saying there was only one theme:

They can do anything that we can't prevent them from doing.

Once again it really is that simple.

What can we do to prevent it? That's why they do it.

As for the question of how Karl Rove knows what the terrorists intend to do, I was wondering the same thing about John McCain a few days ago when he made essentially the same statement, and three possibilities came to mind:

1) He's clairvoyant.
2) He's bluffing.
3) He's in cahoots with the terrorists.

Let's look at this with dispassionate logic: If we dismiss the possibility of clairvoyance, the only available options amount to treason in one way or another. In other words, either he's bluffing -- threatening terrorism for political advantage -- or else ... well we don't want to think about that, do we?

Seriously: What difference does it make? The statements made by Rove, McCain, Cheney and Bush (among others) -- not just recently but continuously since 9/11, and especially whenever they feel threatened -- amount to an ultimatum: a threat of terrorist action against the United States in the event that Congress, reflecting the will of the American people, forces an end to this war-of-choice, which (apparently we were supposed to forget) was started deliberately on the strength of a pack of carefully constructed lies and hundreds of millions of dollars worth of advertising.

But we haven't forgotten. And we really can dismiss the possibility of clairvoyance. Because if Bush, Cheney, Rove et al. are clairvoyant, 9/11 would never have happened unless they wanted it to.

Therefore we know exactly what these threats represent: a protection racket of the vilest sort:

Give us full control of your country -- the budget, the legal system, the military, the works! -- or else you will be attacked by terrorists -- again!

And so. The treason is obvious. The Guillotine Department is standing by. What are we waiting for?