The Return of Rove: McCain Has Surrended His Campaign to Fearmonger who Smeared Him (Rolling Stone)

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/23482821/the_return_of_rove

Here's the latest from Dr. Hunter S. Thompson's able successor at Rolling Stone, Dr. Matt S. Taibbi:

"Ever since the nomination of Sarah Palin, Washington has been abuzz with rumors that Rove has been invited to help plot campaign strategy for McCain. His rise from the ashes is the scariest story of an already scary campaign season. Presidents come and go; they sit in a place where the law can still touch them, and they're subject to the vote once every four years. But Karl Rove is a revolutionary, a man who can't be stopped by anything except death and maybe — maybe — prison. Rove is trying to finish the work of Nixon and Bush: to achieve the supremacy of a peculiarly American form of Leninism, one that involves the drowning of the electoral process in idiot witch hunts and dirty tricks, the handing over of all policy to anyone with a dollar more than the next guy, and the total aggrandizement of incumbent power at the expense of an entire system of checks and balances. With Rove back in the mix, there's now a hell of a lot more at stake this November than there was when a batty, battle-scarred old poll-chaser like John McCain was the darkest figure on the ticket. Not to sound too alarmist, but Election Day now becomes a referendum on democracy itself...

The hallmark of the Rove campaigning method is the political act so baldly below the belt that it literally staggers you. Even the most hardened cynics find themselves continually surprised by the ability of Rove and his minions to always hit that evasive new low, coming up with things that would shock a 60-year-old Greyhound-station hooker.

What American doesn't remember Rove, after 9/11, saying that liberals wanted to "offer therapy and understanding to our attackers"? What Texan doesn't recall fondly the "push poll" Rove reportedly commissioned for Bush, in which voters were asked if they would be less likely to vote for Gov. Ann Richards if they knew her staff was "dominated by lesbians"? ...

..All of these fairly transparent moves were beginner-level Rove tactics, designed to remove real issues from the equation and concentrate voter attention on an image of Obama as "the biggest celebrity in the world," in Schmidt's words, a superficial, self-centered member of the beautiful people who probably windsurfed with John Kerry. Rove himself provided the outlines of this strategy earlier in the year when he said about Obama, "Even if you never met him, you know this guy. He's the guy at the country club with the beautiful date, holding a martini and a cigarette who stands against the wall and makes snide comments about everyone who passes by." "

is the most vicious ever. Her husband's advisors slimed her own child 8 years ago, back when the Great Maverick stood for something.

husband now, in fact. As a mother, if anyone EVER attacked my child, for any reason, I'd go all fucking mama-grizzly-bear on their asses, for the rest of their lives. But I think Brigit is more like a pet or a prop for her than a real child.

"I'd go all fucking mama-grizzly-bear on their asses"

I'm the same way. Nobody messes with my babies!

Here's his piece on Palin, that compares her speech before the Republican Convention to "Gidget Addresses the Reichstag":

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/23318320/mad_dog_palin