...on Operation Dolchstoss II

"I don't know about you, but moderation and restraint is not what I felt as I watched the twin towers crumble to the earth, a side of the Pentagon destroyed and almost 3,000 of our fellow citizens perish in flames and rubble," Karl Rove said, according to the text. "Moderation and restraint is not what I felt -- and moderation and restraint is not what was called for. It was a moment to summon our national will -- and to brandish steel. MoveOn.org, Michael Moore and Howard Dean may not have agreed with this, but the American people did."

- Washington Post, June 24, 2005

Members of MoveOn.org aren't REAL Americans according to Bush's Brain. I dropped some money their way during the last election. I guess that means I'm not a REAL American either.

No, I'm obviously a traitor. I'm scum. I'm the kind of guy who would stab my country in the back for the sheer joy of it. I can't love America, not the way REAL Americans can. Karl Rove said so.

The question is why did Karl say it? And why, as the clever diarists at Daily Kos noticed, were his words echoed by the coordinated Republican Noise Machine?

Why? Because Shrub has fucked the Presidency up so badly there is no future for this country except hard times and disaster. And a scapegoat is needed.

Back in the 1920's the Germans wondered why they had it so bad. Their armies were defeated, their nation occupied (parts of it anyway) and their economy was in the toilet. It had to be somebody's fault, didn't it?

Of course it was. Inbred incompetents hadn't lead the people into a war they couldn't hope to win. No, Germany had been betrayed at home, stabbed in the back (Dolchstoss) by traitors.

The traitors looked like Germans, they sounded like Germans, but they weren't Germans. Not REAL Germans. They had funny ideas, and maybe funny accents, and they certainly didn't support the government.

Communists. Socialists. Jews.

The Shrub is going down in flames and he is taking the country with it. Eventually even the media has to turn on him in order to keep their audience. When that happens he's going to hit Nixonian levels of approval, and not the good kind Nixon had before Watergate broke.

If all the lies and theft and incompetence were revealed the Republican party would be destroyed for generations. They can't blame Iraq, the mortgaging of our economy, the failure to catch Osama, our deteriorating position in the world and an utter failure to address domestic issues on "a few bad apples." The whole GOP brought into the plan and backed Shrub to the hilt. The whole GOP is going to take the fall.

So, you need a distraction. An enemy. A scapegoat. Somebody to blame when it all goes South (a very apt metaphor) and the torch-wielding mob shows up at your doorstep looking for blood.

I am that enemy. Plus the other 49% of voters who tried to turn the country away from disaster during the last election.

Not the best population to make a scapegoat of. Your best bet is a small minority that is culturally or ethnically distinct with wealth you can loot. That way they don't have much political power, they are easy to demonize and you can take their stuff.

Going after half the voters in the U.S. is more than even Rove can handle. Down the road they will try to peel off the "bad liberals" from the rest of the pack and make them the target. I'd say it's going to get nasty, but it's already disgusting.

Rove's got the Presidency, both houses of Congress, a lot of judges and a completely brought-off corporate media with which to pull his latest magic trick. The only thing our side has is three little words. They used to mean something, and I believe they still do.

"United we stand."