James Wolcott: A-Roving We Will Go

Posted by James Wolcott

After spending a harrowing evening in the Gerry and Cookie Fleck Hospitality Room without a View, Jonah Goldberg low-tailed it back east on the earliest plane that would let him fly in the cargo hold. He tries to put up a good front, but the fatigue betrayed by his Corner posts indicates his stay in Chi-town was hell on earth. Ditto John Derbyshire's report, where he complains about the heat in Chicago and swiftly changes the subject, not wanting to relive his horrible experience. Using my superior powers of inference, I divine that the fundraiser in Chicago was the biggest bust since the Broadway opening of Carrie the Musical.

Meanwhile, Victor Davis Hanson, who's supposed to be one of the Mature Voices on NRO, has pulled a Karl Rove.

As Karl Rove recently said--well, everyone knows what he oinked. Bush apologists at NRO are falling all over themselves to defend Bush's spongy gray matter, deploying every bit of sophistry they have at their greasy fingertips. From Koufax Country, the counterstrike has been swift and furious. Steve Gilliard, answering John Aravosis' call for action at Americablog, eloquently bugles the battle cry, "Hammer those fuckers with their words". The Rude Pundit rudely pundits, "Karl Rove To America: Suck It," and notes some fine distinctions that seem to have been overlooked. "When Howard Dean speaks, he’s speaking as the chair of the Democratic Party. The Democrats pay him. If Democrats around the nation don’t like what Dean says, then they can cease donating to the party. When Dick Durbin speaks, he’s representing the people of Illinois, to whom he will be answerable when he’s up for re-election. When Karl Rove speaks, he’s talking as an official with the White House. The only person he’s accountable to is the President, who, as Scott McClellan so dismissingly pointed out, won’t ask Rove to apologize. Rove’s paid by each and every tax-paying American. He represents all of us." And DCmediagirl speculates that Karl Rove may discover in his deteriorating years, as Lee Atwater did, that karma is a bitch.