Letters to the Editor
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What a hoot
Garrison, my family is planning a trip to the BWCA next summer. You are invited, along with the entire PHC group. You will each need to pay your own way, of course. And, in August, the mosquitoes are not that bad. In June, there are the blackflies, and that is truly a bad time.
As for Rove, he is the scum of the earth. Hopefully, he will end like Lee Atwater. I wish Karl the same fate.
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Mr. Keillor, have you been watching "Deliverance"?
As I read your article, I visualized Burt Reynolds as the sadistic sunshine leader Karl Rove, John Voight as the naive but ever trusting Republican party, Ronny Cox as the ineffectual Democratic Party, The mountain men would be the Christian right, and of course Ned Beatty as the American public (and we all know what happened to him).
The analogy is a stretch, but it works!
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Finally - Something We Can Agree On
Garrison - I can't stand Prairie Home Companion or Writer's Almanac.
But at least we can agree that camping sucks.
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The 'skeeters in the boundary waters aren't THAT bad...
...but the leeches, they are bad. Real, real bad.
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Somehow, a cream pie is not enough . . .
Rove wearing shit and calling it flowers is more depressing than amusing because (as Mr. Keillor notes) that is exactly what he has been doing for more than six years, and only the collusion of the "mainstream press" and the imbecility of a large part of the U.S. voting public allowed him to get away with it.
On the other hand, the image of Rove with fecal matter on his lapel does make me wonder how easy it might be to get his his future travel itinerary . . .
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I hope Karl is working on plans for 2008, 2010 and 2012...
Just to keep Garrison depressed. Depression is good for an artist.
JEB!!!!
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DIRIGO
Thank you for the kind words and your thoughts.
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We haven't heard the last from Rove
Does a completely entrenched, Machavellian strategist ever just retire? This is the architect, the brain, and the driving force behind this administration. I don't think someone like this can just drop it all and walk away. It's a nice thought that Rove would just go away, but I don't think we should get too excited.
Just a random thought, but Rove could be compared to Henry Kissinger: an expert of strategy and realpolitik who advises an unpopular President, and then distances himself from the President and administration as it goes down. This is what we see Rove doing now: finally abandoning the sinking ship. But I think that Rove still has plenty of ideology, fight, and plain old meanness left in him, not to mention all those connections, all that influence. Just a hunch, but I think we will be hearing from Rove again.
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Wow, elephant man
I, too, hope that Rove is a big part of the 2008 campaign.
I, too, hope that Jeb (or "JEB!!") is the Publicans' candidate.
But not for the same reasons, I think.
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So happy he's stepped out
As it happened, on the very day Karl announced his retirement, I read the lead stories in he Sept. Atlantic, which had been delivered a few days earlier, all focused on Rove. The lead story, by Joshua Green, was titled "The Rove Presidency," an excellent analysis of why Rove was so successful at "winning" two elections for Shrub, while so unsuccessful at creating a "permanent Republican majority."
Rove's vision of Republican control forever included no images of how to relate to Democratic members of Congress, and no way to reach out to average citizens.
I'm so glad he's gone, although his official absence from the White House probably won't mean much.
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Ron Smith
Thanks.
Scanning some headlines this morning, here are some ideas for a script or two dealing with the Bleak House era we're living in.
In my conception of various dramas on the time, Karl Rove would always be a bit player, albeit one with unusual and unexplained influence. Rush Limbaugh would shout offstage periodically through a large speaker.
The Trial of Jose Padilla. See the Christian Science Monitor; also Harpers.org.
Former British P.M. Tony Blair's sense of military risk (and by implication, that of G. W. Bush, the air marshal of Texas and Oklahoma). See Geoffrey Wheatcroft's piece (commentary) in the Guardian in which he relates exchanges between Blair and Jacques Chirac on war - Chirac, the former French president, being a veteran of combat in Algeria. Hold the Freedom Fries.
Habeas Corpus: The Musical. Snappy tunes and show-stopping dance numbers highlight the arrests of thousands of Americans over the next generation under the Spy Program as everyone wonders what happened to the right to challenge mass arrests in court. (This is a bit arcane of course; a truly brilliant playwright, who understands HBO-like script techniques will be needed. Of course David Chase may be busy for while doing The Sopranos movies).
What do you think?
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The Twisted Boy Scout
Mr. Keillor, This is a very funny article and I like your analogy!!! On an aside, I highly recommend winter camping in the boundary waters, you stay clean, no mosquitoes, and you camp on the lakes, as long as you layer well you stay warm and it is absolutely beautiful!!
And in regards to your camping analogy, I just came back from a trek with a bunch of Brits and their stereotype of the typical American trekker is someone who is completely unfit for the trip they signed up for, brings way too much stuff, has a zillion electronic items and does not keep up with the group....kind of like the way we went into Iraq.....funny...
But I just have a picture of an adult Karl Rove as a twisted boy scout, in shorts and a hat, with clip board and whistle and no one is paying attention to him.....
I guess time to play Taps!!!
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Oh, if only...
Oh, if only I could convince myself that enough voting Americans will take to heart the lessons of the last six years for Republicans' hold on the helm of the ship of State to be broken. But I'm not hopeful. We elected George W. "What, me worry?" Bush to office twice, and our fat, comfortable complacency hasn't been challenged in all this time of unnecessary war by requests for personal sacrifice. We huddle together voluntarily, baaing and mooing, as we're led to intellectual slaughter. Look at the pretty shiny things! Walk toward them!! Don't think!!!!