Bachmann gets the Rove treatment

Wouldn't you know it?  Just as Michelle Bachmann's presidential campaign seemed to be surging, she gets served up some of that Karl Rove sauce.  Tasty!

Recent polls have shown Bachmann to be even with or ahead of poor old Mitt Romney, not only in Iowa, where she has something of a home court advantage, but on the national stage as well.  That's right.  The Republican party, filled to the brim with Tea Party zealots, is actually nutty enough to nominate Michelle Bachmann.  And the cynical calculators sitting in the conference rooms at the Heritage Foundation, Freedom Works, and the Club for Growth know it.  And it scares the hell out of them.

Enter Karl Rove, the smear artist.  Remember the 2004 election cycle?  Although he has never admitted to it, most analysts believe that Rove concocted the whole "Swiftboat Veterans for Truth" movement that called into question the validity of John Kerry's military record.  As unbelievable as it seems, Rove managed to smear a decorated war veteran with lies and libelous rumors, playing to the perverted patriotism so prevalent among the Know-Nothings.

Rove went to work and --lo and behold! --stories are now surfacing about Bachmann's migraine headaches that, rumors allege, incapacitate her for days at a time.  Bachmann has spent several news cycles now explaining her medical condition, defending her abilities.

(As an aside, it's worth noting that one of our greatest presidents, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, was crippled with polio through most of his four terms in office.)

Well, Ms. Bachmann, this is just the beginning.  If you continue to have success in your bid for the nomination, the attacks will become more vicious, more hysterical.

Rove gets paid big money by people with huge financial empires to tear down anything or anyone that has the slightest taint of populism, even right-wing populism.  And that includes Bible-thumping throwbacks like you.

Rove's bosses hope to supplant you with a fake populist like Texas' Rick Perry, who knows who it is that butters his bread.

The irony of the whole thing, of course, is that Rove is responsible for your success.  As I stated in my previous post, it was he who fired up the ignorant rabble in the 2004 election, playing on their fears about Mexicans, homosexuals, terrorists and liberals, convincing them that their way of life was at stake.  Now, the monster that he awoke, of which you are the most recent manifestation (now that Sarah Palin is old news), is running rampant, threatening to destroy the perverted coalition that Rove cobbled together.

I'm not sure how it will turn out.  But I'm enjoying the show.  And there is one thing I am sure about.  Karl Rove is enjoying it, too.  He gets to do what he loves to do and, win or lose, he still gets his paycheck.