Reconsidering Mr. Turd Blossom

George W. Bush called Karl Rove "Turd Blossom," after a plant that blossoms amid dung. It's a far more appropriate designation than "Boy Genius." That title would have been appropriate had Rove invented the right-wing populism that brought the GOP to power and near majority status. The party was groping toward that strategy since the days of Spiro T. Agnew, and Kevin Phillips laid it out in clear terms in 1968. Like Lee Atwater, his mentor, Rove was the master of dirty tricks and playing wedge issues. Who can forget the rumors about John McCain, including the one about his adopted daughter being his love child from a liaison with an African American prostitute? Then there was his success in making anyone who disagreed with Bush's war in Iraq appear to be a traitor. A few millions spent on clever attack advertisements, and John Kerry was transformed from a decorated war hero into a self-promoting traitor. Then there were the other tricks some attribute to him. Did he somehow help Dan Rather with the faked documents about Bush's Air Guard Service? Their contents were dead-on accurate, but the ensuing flim-flam created a taboo against looking into the military career of Lt. George W. Bush. The Bush administration has been shrouded in so much secrecy that we can only guess at the extent of Rove's skullduggery. We know that he had a hand in outing Valery Plame, but adroit White House and Justice Department maneuvering created a successful cover-up. There is abundant evidence that Rove was involved in ousting the eight US Attorneys who would not engage in political prosecutions but, again, there has been a successful cover-up. With a thoroughly politicized and probably corrupt Justice Department, Rove and his friends have been free to do as they wished. Perhaps a few readers will recall that Rove was meeting with Enron people in 2001 while he was still a stockholder, and Bush's Department of Justice did absolutely nothing. Rove deserves much of the credit for the domestic legislation that passed under G. W. Bush............