the swan song of karl rove-itics

so i had just finished watching the final video podcast of marcy wheeler and jane hamsher's coverage of the libby trial at firedoglake and was discussing the travesty that is media and politics in america today with my anonymous friend at my anonymous workplace when something very light and fluffy dawned on me: we are watching what i believe to be the end - yes, i said it - the end of karl rove-itics.

if you haven't seen frontline's story about karl rove called the architect , then please run - don't walk! it's an enlightening, albeit disturbing, story of how rove's particular political tactics had reached (at the time of the airing of this piece) success, due to and in fact because of it's use of dirty tricks and ideological polarization. not because rove himself believed his dirty tricks were for the greater good, nor for any actual personal belief in the ideology he pretended to espouse, but simply because he believed they would win elections. and win elections, they did. until november of last year that is, at which point they lost big time.

so now we're at a very interesting impasse: scooter libby has just been convicted (despite what fox noise says), ann coulter won herself another 15 minutes and ms clinton and mr obama are supposedly at each other's throats. so what does that mean? business as usual?

i don't think so.

i think the people have found a way to circumvent the horrendously sensational MSM here in the US of A, and that path is called (and of course, i'm far from the first person to say this) the blogosphere. people who want the answers finally have the means to get them and the resources that allowed marcy wheeler and jane hamsher to cover, without sound bites or commercials, the scooter libby trial in such a powerful way is more important to the future of politics and media in america than anybody may now see.

but history always speaks for itself. politics in this country have been on a roller-coaster ride since john hancock slapped his ... uh ... name on that declaration over two centuries ago, but for the past six years we've been in a down-slump that has made the entire world a more dangerous place to live.

this administration, led by the brilliant but misguided karl rove, has done exactly what he wanted it to do: won a couple of very important elections and succeeded in polarizing the entire political and media scene. but this polarization spread throughout the world like a forest fire and now we live in a world where one bombing a day is not bad!

at any rate, the signs are all around us: rove-itics are dead! now let's get to some really meaningful political dialogue and ignore the MSM until they start doing some actual reporting.

=SoS