Inside Karl Rove's Election-Night Diary
By Bernard Weiner
t r u t h o u t | Satire/Commentary
Saturday, 09 November, 2002
Now, THAT was fun! The liberals never knew what hit 'em. Clueless, those guys.
But, based on our polling and focus groups, your's truly knew weeks ago. That's why I could safely send George out on the hustings for that last-minute pick-me-up to the GOP troops. (The Prez wasn't happy about having to work, and disrupting his nap patterns, but he sure appreciates my plan now.)
The boy genius rides again. Sure feels good. I needed to redeem myself big time after blowing the Jim Jeffords thing, which threw our whole agenda into disarray.
But now it's clear sailing. Thank you, Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. We rode those bogeymen into the sunset. I was worried that maybe we were too obvious and the electorate might see through what we were doing. But no worry; by playing up the possibility of new terror attacks and the evil Saddam, the fear factor worked, and the American citizenry marched in lockstep, giving us whatever we wanted.
Our friends in the media kept all that sinking-economy news off the front pages, and all our scandals as well (I loved the way I orchestrated Harvey Pitt's resignation, dropped right into the election coverage and nobody even noticed), and then, thank you Lord!, the D.C. sniper came along and dominated the news cycles for several weeks just before the vote. And he was even named "Muhammed"! Couldn't have asked for a better script.
And the best part was that the Dems didn't know what to do. They were so unbelievably disspirited and disorganized. They wanted to slam us on the Iraq issue but couldn't or they'd risk revealing themselves for the unpatriotic wimps they are, so a lot felt obliged to vote with us. When key Dem leaders like Daschle and Gephardt and Feinstein and Kerry voted with us, I knew the election was in the bag.
Those stupid liberals had no unified program to offer in opposition to ours -- and, what's more important, no balls. The September 11 events are still working their magic for us, just as we thought they would. (And now, given the election results, we can be assured that there will be no independent investigation of our behavior or the coverup. We're home free!)
Well, sure, we've still got to work with the Dems in the Senate, who could, if they decide they're going to put up a fight, cause trouble for our legislation. But, I think we can roll enough of them to get the required 60 votes when we have to.
We'll get our judges approved, we'll get the tax cut made permanent for our friends, we'll change the composition of the Supreme Court (goodbye, Roe v. Wade!), ANWAR here we come with our drilling rigs, and on to Baghdad. (If we really want to go there; we don't need to now. We could get the U.N. inspectors in there and finesse our way out of having to invade.)
The added bonus of our electoral sweep is that we're in good shape for the 2004 race. Jeb's in place, and Liddy might be a dynamite partner for George. A Bush-Dole ticket! Now, that's brilliant! We'll carve the womens' vote away from the Dems. They can keep the Jews and the blacks and Arabs. The Dems ain't goin' anywhere for a long time. We're in like Flynn for at least six more years, with Jeb to follow.
We've got the Congress, we've got the White House, we've got the Supreme Court, we've got the media in our pockets. And all the Dems have to oppose us is a few predictable malcontents, an insignifcant peace movement (which we can always ruin with some of our undercover guys engineering some violence), and some wackos writing on the internet.
Given our election sweep, Ashcroft can take care of all those traitors, without having to look over his shoulder all the time. John is so happy; he was smarting about having lost to a dead man in the last election, but the Carnahan widow is no more.
Of course, it's possible that we've stirred up a hornet's nest and the Dems will be galvanized to reorganize themselves into a true opposition. (Gephardt probably will resign as House Minority Leader -- I don't blame him: Nobody wants to have to do daily battle against that obnoxious, but effective, buzzsaw Tom Delay).
But I doubt it. They're too frightened and scattered, and they just don't have the troops behind them in the electorate to give them courage. Nor do they have a real leader; Daschle and Gephardt abdicated when they voted for the Iraq war. Wellstone could have been the rally-around guy, but, sorry for him great for us, he's gone.
No need to worry. We're in the driver's seat for the next six years, and probably beyond, and our political enemies are just going to have to get used to it. If not, we'll destroy them totally. This is going to be so much fun!
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Bernard Weiner, Ph.D., is co-editor of the new online political site CrisisPapers.org , has taught American politics and international relations at San Diego State and Western Washington Universities, and was with the San Francisco Chronicle for nearly 20 years. |
