Rove's Iraq-Terrorism Link Is Doomed To Fail, So Is His National Security Strategy

And the best part is that the public's own incorrect information that Karl Rove no doubt approves of isn’t working the way he intended

In spite of all evidence to the contrary, recent polls have shown that at least half of all respondents believe that either Iraq actually had WsMD, or a connection between al-Qaeda and/or the September 11 attacks

Further, the public is spared the overwhelming majority of the ugly images and harsh realities from life in Iraq today, especially the rapidly-growing free-fire zone known as Baghdad

The images of flag-draped coffins are kept to a minimum of media exposure, and the images of large numbers of maimed, wounded & traumatized troops returning home to the US are virtually invisible to those without a personal connection

And yet

The US Public is overwhelmingly tired of the Iraq occupation, the loss of lives, limbs, minds & treasure are showing NO real reductions in either the actual violence in Iraq, or the terrorism the Administration keeps threatening will inevitably occur should the levers of political power be pulled from their hands

Even though those people believe WsMD were found, they favor pulling the US troops from Iraq, they do NOT back W's Iraq occupation strategy

No matter, with no other possibilities open for the GOP to consider, this “stay the course” strategy will no doubt be hyped leading up to the 5th anniversary of the 9-11 attacks, but there's another anniversary that's going to make that a much harder mission to accomplish

Just add that to the multiple political balls Rove's got to juggle successfully, without missing a one, if the GOP is to hold on to the House & Senate

The 1st Anniversary of Katrina, more specifically, the absolutely shameful and reprehenisble moment of both this Administration and this President's life

When strong decisive leadership was most needed, W instead stayed on a fund-raising vacation for an additional three days, leaving New Orleans and the Gulf Coast to drown and people died in the most appalling of circumstances and squalid, lonely of ways while surrounded by desperate multitudes who needed their Government's effective efforts immediately, not on a delayed basis

Something Digby covered yesterday, and I think he's dead on target about Rove's strategy of trying to racebait, but do it in as an inoffensive, under-the-media's-radar-glare kind of way

Unfortunately for Karl Rove's efforts to rebuild W's heroic image from the WTC rubble, we'll be seeing more replays of what happened with Katrina last year, like this

AP: Video Contradicts Bush Katrina Statements

Bush didn't ask a single question during the final government-wide briefing the day before Katrina struck on Aug. 29 but assured soon-to-be-battered state officials: "We are fully prepared."

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Bush declared four days after the storm, "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees" that gushed deadly flood waters into New Orleans. But the transcripts and video show there was plenty of talk about that possibility - and Bush was worried too.

How is Rove going to make everyone forget about the President's flat-out lying about not anticipating the levees failure?

How will he spin that BIG W Lie into something positive to try and link the wider war on terrorism to Iraq and the 9-11 strikes specifically, and how effective can such a strategy be when W's own House & Senate GOP politicians are trying to distance themselves as far from his Iraq policy-or absence of one-as possible?

And adding further steepness to the political hill Karl Rove will have to traverse for the GOP to retain it's Executive Branch non-oversight from the GOP held Legislative branch, much of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast still look exactly the same today as they did immediately after W swore to rebuild the shattered areas back in September of last year

How, logically, could the Administration fail it's citizens so miserably when it had days of warning that a major storm was on the way?

How, logically, did such a shameful response increase anyone's confidence that this Administration was far more qualified than any other entity to protect the US public from terrorist attacks or natural disasters?

Going back to the Administration's false bravado as it relates to the patriotism of those who criticize it or campaign's against it's "stay the course".....err...."adapting to win" strategy, most evident in the GOP's seeming glee about being able to use the Administration's latest legal setback to it's claims of Imperial, unchecked Presidential powers, Judge Taylor's slapping down of W's NSA Warrantless Spying program on the US public

Should Rove think that the US populace can be riled up by the President's being slapped down regarding his NSA's warrantless spying on us, in the delusional strategy that spying on the US public is keeping us safer from another terrorist attack on US soil, all that has to be pointed out is that W shut down the CIA's bin Laden unit devoted to catching/killing the theological thug who was responsible for the murders of almost 3000 people on US soil, 9-11.

Point out that the warrantless spying on US citizens doesn't seem to have reduced the level of violence occuring around the world, if the Iraq occupation is pointed to as part of the "War On Terrorism", then the Administration should have NO problems showing where it's warrantless spying has made the US troops mission in Iraq easier to accomplish

All the Administration's major legal victories regarding the disruption of alleged plots of terrorist cells have either been overturned or almost completely discredited even before any kind of legal proceedings, so it appears that warrantlessly spying on the US public hasn't been anywhere near the panacea the Administration has claimed up to this point

It appears that actually disrupting al-Qaeda is far more difficult for this Administration than smearing it's critics and launching a too-little, too-late grab for absolute power, a mission that would have been far easier to accomplish immediately after September 11

And here's where to play this card, showing how, when it comes to actually increasing Homeland Security, the Administration's rhetoric is far loftier than it's actual "we're keeping the American People safe" priorities

From October of last year, and last I checked, these reports and budgets still hadn't been funded, established or actually been carried out by now either

Government misses dozens of security deadlines since Sept. 11

The Bush administration has missed dozens of deadlines set by Congress after the Sept. 11 attacks for developing ways to protect airplanes, ships and railways from attacks.

Here's a perfect example, and one that Rove just can't spin away to put W in a positive light leading into the elections

A law signed by President Bush on Nov. 25, 2002, set a July 1, 2004, deadline for ships and ports to tighten security amid fears that nuclear weapons might be smuggled in a cargo container.

The Coast Guard largely accomplished the undertaking. But much still remains undone: A report on how a grant program for shippers and ports would work is more than a year late; a report on cargo container security is eight months overdue; a national security plan for marine transportation is well past its April 1 due date.

Instead, because Karl Rove got sidetracked with his part in deliberately outing Valerie Plame, his formerly sharp-sense of pure politics was knocked off track, hence one reason the GOP and Administration are both floundering about in a political panic that's growing in the party's national leadership by the hour

There are also far too many legal problems and ethical scandals hitting the GOP at the state and national levels for Karl Rove to realistically or logically counteract in a way that's positive for the party or Administration

Rising gas prices while the price of oil itself is decreasing, an unGodly pension for Exxon's CEO, an increasingly harsh & bitterly extreme theological GOP base fearful it's hold on political power is coming to an end, thereby ending it's attempts to legally elevate itself among all other religions and theologies, a fervent desire to insert the political process into the most personal decisions regarding end of life issues-as in the case of the public's overwhelming rejection of those who wanted to force the feeding tube back into Terri Schiavo in spite of numerous court rulings and her husband's acting in his wife's best, stated interest

With all the GOP's stalwarts who have stepped down-Tom DeLay, Bob Ney-or are convicted felons-Jack Abramoff, Randy Cunningham-Karl Rove's efforts become even more unlikely to succeed than before

Because the US military is bogged down in Iraq, and only because this Administration lied us into this conflict, the US appetite for any other military hostilities is virtually nonexistent except among the blood-fueled fantasies of the the dwindling number of radical neocons still backing this Administration

There are NO large numbers of US ground troops that can be spared for an Iran & Syria campaign, not without a draft there's not.

And Congress itself would have to pull the plug on financing such a venture even if W decided to declare war on his own, there's absolutely no way the public would allow it to go on for one single second.

The Administration could disprove this idea with public opinion polls, so the silence in not doing so is truly deafening

And the closer to election day we get with any terrorist strikes, the more likely such a strike will be seen as yet another dirty political trick rather than a real attack-The terrorist bombings in the Madrid Train stations last year didn't rally the public around the elected Govt, as they were booted from power within days of the attacks

That's how you counter Karl Rove's Homeland Security strategy, the only card the GOP's got to play is NOT going to work come November

That's why the GOP is so worried, Rove is so aggravated, and W is so discombobulated, because the majority of the voters aren't buying into their extremist agenda of sowing misery and discord while transferring as much of the public treasury to their campaign contributors and corrupt cronies any more

The time for the radical neocons and GOP operatives starts coming to an end in November, and that's a reality they just won't be able to change