Flushing the Turd

It was touching to see Bush embrace his 'dear friend', his own personal Goebbels, as Karl Rove prepared to leave Washington last week.

Rove's departure bore all the earmarks which have characterized his foul presence on the American landscape.

First and foremost, it was phony. No-one believes the reason he gave for his leaving. No-one believes that he won't continue to advise Bush, to serve as his 'brain'. His 'departure' is pure cosmetics. Either, as many hope, some bad news is coming down the chute as a result of one of his traitorous and criminal acts of the past - so he has to get out while gettin's good - or, as I think, he's getting out of the White House in order to comandeer the forces for the 2008 election, or maybe attempt to burnish Bush's image. He couldn't do these things while still 'serving' in the Administration.

Secondly, the departure was characteristic of Rove since it concluded with him poking his stick into the eye of objective reality one again. For nothing so exults the soul of a divisive, power-at-all-costs, cheap smear-slinging proponent of the Big Lie than to assert falsehoods as though they were ultimate truth - and to see them stick, see them repeated as fact. This is the ultimate thrill which drives Rove - the whole "We create our own reality" thing.

This was seen in his description of Bush as a man of 'courage' and 'vision', etc. But further and more importantly, it was seen in Rove's identification of Bush, and of himself, with the simple God-fearin' folk of America, the folks who told the President they were a-prayin' for him. Tears starting in his eyes, the lump growing larger in his throat, Rove nearly sobbed as he related his communion with the church-going decent people, and expressed his hope that the 'Almighty' would continue to bless America.

For anyone with the slightest knowledge of how Rove used religion to divide America, to win his pathetic 51% 'mandate' to govern the country according to principles diamterically opposed to Christ's words, the irony-meter must be going off the dial.

Anyone knowing the slander and deception, the low, dirty tricks and the amoral mindset behind Rove's life work knows that Rove is no Christian. Christopher Hitchens has noted that Rove has stated he's "not fortunate enough to be a person of faith".

So why the praying and the Almighty stuff? To give the knife a final, dashing twist, of course. One more spiteful perversion of reality on the way out the door. That's Rove's stock in trade. Of course he doesn't believe in the Almighty. It's just one last sprinkle of fairy dust for the chumps.

Is Bush really a believer? Perhaps in his mind he is - perhaps he believes Jesus helped him to quit drinking. But a quick perusal of the Gospels finds him lacking as a Christian. Sure - all Christians are lacking: we are all sinners.

But there's a difference between sinning as a result of falling off a path one is trying to follow, and sinning as a philosophy one is following which is quite opposed to the teachings of Christ. There's a difference between failing when you're trying to do good, and following a path which is badness itself.

Ruling entirely in the interests of the wealthiest 10 per cent of the nation, punshing the poor, ignoring the afflicted, mounting a propaganda campaign to deceive the public into an injust, illegal war for the undisclosed reason of poaching oil and enriching the wealthiest ten per cent of the nation - these are in no way the actions of a Christian, or of one trying to be a Christian.

What we have is a case of Christianity being used as a Trojan horse which is used to ride into the halls of power - and once in, all manner of anti-Christian policies are unpacked and implemented.

Whether Bush's 'Christianity' is merely a subterfuge concocted by Rove, much like Bush's 'rancher image', to make him a more saleable candidate, we can't know. Only Bush knows how sincere he believes himself to be. What is known is that Rove has never failed to capitalize religion and use it on his opponents as a weapon at every opportunity. Bush's 'Christianity' sure served Rove's plan well enough.

That's why it was entirely appropriate that Rove fought back a few tears while speaking of the Almighty after being embraced by his creation. Yes - the same Almighty who smiled upon Rove's smearing of McCain as an illegitmate black child-fathering nut case, who smiles on all the lives Rove has destroyed with his finkish actions, all the lives ended as a result of Rove's enabling of this most destructive regime which has unfailingly 'created its own reality' - aided by a compliant media seduced by Rove's winking amorality.

The whole thing has been false from beginning to end, a charade put on with the nihilistic objective of seeing how far reality could be twisted in the name of power. A few tears and prayers at the end - how it warms the cockles of the heart! How fitting for a departure which is no departure since Rove isn't really going anywhere. In fact, the law of perversity by which he lives decrees that he will be more present after his leaving than ever before.