Change the Rules - Win the Game

Billmon over at the Whiskey Bar has an excellent analysis of Karl Rove's latest bullshit and reminds us that, regardless of out disgust, he remains a dangerous adversary. We should never forget that he has been quite successful over the years of whipping us with our own sticks and taking advantage of our inability or unwillingness to crawl down into the gutter with him.

So Rove is falling back on his classic strategy of rallying the base. What's more, he's mainlining it a much rawer and more savage version of the conservative message than the White House usually permits itself. While the customary surrogates -- Fox News, Rush, the blogger hyena pack -- have snarled and snapped, the results apparently have been found wanting. Now Bush's "brain" is stepping into the ring himself.

But, like fellow psychopath Mike Tyson, Rove isn't just telegraphing his punches, he's also displaying the depths of his fear. The rhetorical ear chewing and head butting is a clear sign the champ doesn't have the juice any more, and knows it. Rove is trying to get by on sheer intimidation. He's pushing as many primordial conservative buttons as he can -- leaning on them, in fact -- in hopes he can once again make the dreaded liberals the story, not the march of folly currently sinking into the Iraqi quicksands.

This is going to get uglier and uglier.