Q: Is it really important that the anthem be sung in English?
A: Absolutely! While it’s true that the US has no official language it is widely accepted throughout the world that English is the “best” language because of its straight-forward rules, consistent grammar and spelling, and the fact that it is the newest language in the world, thus has not gotten clunky and, well, old.

Also, you can’t just change the language of a song! Remember the English version of Nena’s 1983 song 99 Luft Ballons? Wasn’t very good, was it? Should we change the words of Don Ho’s classic song to all English so it goes “’Merry Christmas’ is Hawaii’s way of saying Merry Christmas to you”? It’d sound moronic! And let’s not even get in to the abomination that was Toni Basil’s Spanish version of Oh Mickey.

Perhaps most importantly though, there is the slippery-slope of translating songs; what’s next? Translating books? “Dubbing” movies? Translating religious texts? I shudder to think.

Q: Is our National Anthem really not about the American Revolution?
A: I think we can all agree that the Revolution was a fairly inconsequential skirmish, especially when put in the shadow of the cataclysmic apocalypse that was the War of 1812. Ask any schoolchild about it and he’ll rattle off the names of all those important people involved and talk about the thing, or things, that caused it. The Revolution may have forged the nation, the Civil War may have seen it cleaved and then blissfully reunited, but the War of 1812 showed us the most important lesson of all – that the thing that caused it should be avoided.

Q: Hey, what are ‘ramparts’ anyway?
A: It’s what you get in a gyro along with the feta cheese and tzatziki. Aaaaaaaahahahahaha! Get it? Get it? Hahahahahahahaha!

Q: Isn’t it a bit demeaning that our anthem is to the tune of a British drinking song?
A: Ram Parts?! Come on! Ram Parts! Hahahahahahaha…aha…ah, what do you know from funny.

Q: Isn’t this concern over a Spanish-language version representative of our paranoia at the Mexican influx and a shift in the proletariat power-base?
A: Nothing could be further from the truth. It’s that it is offensive for nebulous moral reasons, but also there is the issue of efficiency – we’re all going to have to learn the anthem in Mandarin in a few years, so a Spanish version is just a waste of energy.

Q: Hey, remember that joke about the near-sighted Mexican who goes to the ball game and thinks Americans are so kind because they all sing, “Jose, can you see?”? Why isn’t that enough for the Hispanic community?
A: Excellent question. It’s indicative of Mexican-Americans incredible greed and insensitivity toward a nation that has showed them nothing but compassion and nurturing.

Q: Did I see on the news that Bush is against the Spanish version but Laura Bush disagrees with him?
A: Of course not. You must have eaten too close to bed time and dreamt it. A terrible, terrible dream.

Q: I’ve always been trouble that our anthem is about war – the only anthem which is.
A: Oh, give me a break. For starters, that’s not a question. But whatever. Look, what should our anthem be about? Puppies? The ideals of Democracy? Ours being the first nation to be forged by philosophers instead of tyrants? Yawn. Sounds snobby. War’s a crowd-pleaser. Got oomph. Plus, if you want to be a pussy about it, what about the fact that it’s not about war? Technically, the song if about after a battle is over. Your argument is a fallacy! It’d be like saying that Away in A Manger is a song about labor-contractions and epidural. Is that what you’re saying? Because I find that appalling.

Q: Isn’t this whole “issue” another attempt to fabricate a simplistic controversy, one lacking in any nuance or options besides the “for” and “against” camps? Isn’t this just the latest in Karl Rove’s tricks to distract the populace from real, complex issues and from scrutiny of this disgraceful, failed administration?
A: Aaaand… we’re out of time.

In the fifty years that the U.S. government has been tracking, and attempting to preserve, wetlands, not once has anyone been able to hold steady, much less increase, the acreage of wetlands. Until now. President George W. Bush has accomplished this incredible goal in spite of nay-saying environmentalists (who, it is worth noting, have not increased the net acreage of protected wetlands at all. Losers.) while at the same time having a job that I can only describe as being ‘hard work.’ Kudos. Kudos!

The trick, it turns out, is not to waste time trying to “save” dirty, old, asymmetrical wetlands that have a bunch of – forgive the indelicacy – excrement in them, much as the love-sick will attempt to “save” a shiftless sponge. In a testimony to positive thinking, the Bush administration simply found new, better wetlands, some of which help the economy by providing tax breaks to the wealthy so they drop everything and rush out to buy products and services and create jobs for the poor.

Thus inspired, I submit the following for inclusion as federally protected wetlands:

1. The beach (high-tide).
I can’t believe we’ve missed this one for so long. When the tide is in the amount of shallow water increases around forty feet laterally, and for what can only be described as “a really long way”. If there is any doubt that this fails to meet the criteria for wetland, I submit a quick visual appraisal – I believe you’ll notice, oh what are those? Birds? Sitting? Yes, birds! Tons of them!
Approximate acreage gained: 15 million acres (estimate based on sense of bigness of the beach combined with equivalent sense of 15 million being a very big number).

2. Indoor swimming pools (privately owned, only).
Now we’re talking environment, economy and property values. Trifecta! The birds stop and rest in a private pool, protected from the elements and predators. The pools are heated, clean and there may even be a Jacuzzi to take the autumnal migration chill off. The envy of the wetland-hopping crowd. Extra tax breaks will be afforded to indoor pool rooms who keep a large-screen plasma television tuned to Animal Planet at least 50.1% of the time. And, oh, what the hell, we’ll make pool tables tax deductible for having the word “pool” in them, thus increasing Wetland awareness.
Approximate acreage gained: 78,000 acres.

3. My backyard.
My dog is something of a digger. Ordinarily I fill these holes in with mulch and profanity but, inspired by the administration, I would be willing, with proper government funding, to fill them with water. I would also allow a natural environment to develop by stopping all mowing and pruning. This promise would extend to any property turned over to me – eminent domain? – like my neighbors lot. I think this would make a terrific wetland, and am quite sure it would provide a very real economic boost to at least one person.
Approximate acreage gained: Amount to be determined, depending on administration commitment, and dog’s persistence in digging.

4. Mars.
Follow me here. Global warming is definitely happening. But, as study after study has shown (well…one. Part of one.), it definitely isn’t our fault. This means there must be some other factor. An external factor. Logically, if our planet is warming, and it isn’t our fault, all the planets must be warming. Mars has those ice caps, which are then, logically, going to melt any day now. Wetlands ahoy! Admittedly, Mars is not on the regular migratory route for many birds, but is not extinction the price of failure to adapt?
Approximate acreage gained: 1 gajillion.

5. The God-damned clogged sink in the bathroom.
Because that shallow body of water ain’t going anywhere soon.
Approximate acreage gained: 1 (rounded to the nearest whole acre).

You see, the United States has been losing wetland and marshes every year since we started keeping track in 1954. On Earth Day in 2004, President Bush said that he wanted to not just stop the loss, but actually increase the acreage of wetland in the US. After all, farmers and ranchers – you know, those people in political ads in soft-honey focus smiling in front of waving flags? – depend on it so much, as does the ecosystem, and all humans really rely on it for…um…shoot. That thing we do? With our lungs? Breathing! That’s it.

Anyway, I figured it was more sinister bullshit. Or stupid. Or deliberately horrible. Certainly a lie. But last week, secretary Norton announced that they’d done it! They’d increased domestic wetlands by almost 200,000 acres! This is especially impressive considering that, according to the US Geological Survey, Hurricane Katrina destroyed around 64,250 acres of wetland. Norton’s report shows “a loss of 523,500 acres of swamp and marsh wetlands and a gain of 715,300 acres of shallow-water wetlands.” Wow.

Rightly so, Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said, “The President’s historic support of voluntary conservation programs has led the nation to this important milestone.”

Warms the heart, doesn’t it? Ahhhhhh.

Hm. We lost over half a million acres, but gained 700,000…that seems a little weird. Well, best not nitpick. Right? Right.

Because if one did, one would discover that the government redefined the criteria for qualifying as a “wetland.” This new definition includes…

Ready? Take a deep breath.

Golf courses.

I’m serious. Fucking golf courses!

You see, in addition to being ‘wet’ ‘land’, when bird’s migrate, sometimes a couple of them stop to catch their breath in the water-hazards. Before getting zonked in the head by a Titleist, that is. And that’s how we lost a half-million acres of wetland (the most ever), and gained a lot of…”wetland”.

It’s hard to keep getting upset, especially since this sort of thing is certainly not unprecedented. Reagan did this all the time. He redefined “mentally ill” in order to empty out the asylums, which was, coincidentally, around the time the “crazy homeless guy” first appeared on the American landscape. Then he redefined “homeless” to keep those statistics from going up and redefined “poverty” and “unemployed” to show that poverty was down. Clinton did it too, redefining “job” to show how many new jobs his administration had created. And, my personal fave, Reagan redefined “vegetable” to include Ketchup, so he could show that the dietary needs of people on federal assistance were being met.

Anyway…when you’re wrong about someone, or an administration, you have to admit it. And I was wrong about all those things I at times thought about them. Because, in fact, they are apparently all true simultaneously. They’re horribly evil, deliberately cruel, lying idiots.

It feels good to admit that, you know? Like a breath of fresh, golf course air.

Now, this idea (The gender one. I still stand by my Superman claim) is stupid for two reasons: one, it’s not true. Two, the precept is inherently bigoted, itself. Now, you say to me, “Byron, that’s crazy talk. Stop talking crazy.” But listen! The idea here is that we (let’s say, white people) shouldn’t be prejudice against them (let’s say, absolutely anyone now, or in history who has not been white, been white but the wrong kind of white, or been white but distantly, genealogically connected to someone who was not white) for the sole reason that they are just like us. If they were not just like us, then it would be understandable to hate them, make them sit in the back of the bus, etc. You see what I’m saying? But the fact is there are differences between genders, races, etc. Huge chasms. But these differences aren’t hierarchical, there just…you know…differences. Most of them are really interesting and fun, and then periodically infuriating.

The reason I’ve been thinking about this is because I got attacked by a dog earlier this week.

There’s a connection. Just hang in there.

I was walking my dog and we came across another dog, and after a moment of sniffing, apparently realized that they had finally, after years of searching, tracked down their sworn enemy (“So, Muffin, we meet again! Do you know the old Russian proverb about revenge?”). They go at it, determined to avenge whatever. I step in to break it up and the dog goes for me. Fine, to be fair, he didn’t go after all of me. Just my neck.

Okay, so, blah blah blah, we’re in the emergency room and many hours later a doctor sees M and me. He’s saying that dog bites are highly prone to infection and so often they don’t stitch them, since that can heighten the infection risk, but since they are highly visible they probably should. But, he tells me, it’s my call. One cut is on my chin, the one in (well, through) my lip didn’t need stitching, and the other one is a two inch gash about half a centimeter below my carotid artery (about an inch of which will likely scar).

Here is where – as a generalization, of course – a certain gender difference comes in. M can not fathom why I am slow to answer. But I’m struggling with the fact that the one on my neck is going to be such a cool scar! I know this is childish, but come on! Right below a major artery, so it involves a near miss with extreme gore and possible death, it’s on the neck so it’s visible and screams out an interesting story (granted, it implies something more interesting than the real one, but still) – I mean, damn! Cool scar at a relatively low price.

I mentioned my very real, very logical, very in-no-way-motivated-by-a-desire-for-an-interesting-scar concern about the risk of infection, but it was transparent bullshit. Fortunately, the doctor was male, and he knew exactly what I really meant (again – a female doctor might – might – have known what I was really saying, but probably not, she would have just thought I was a germaphobe. And if she did know, she probably would have thought something, reasonably so, along the lines of, “Jesus. Men.”). He said that without stitches the scars would be really ugly – like, the first thing people would look at when they meet me – but that there were going to be a couple scars regardless. Fine. Fair enough.

He did an amazing job stitching things up, though. Almost too good. Probably because he was talking about rabies, a disease he is utterly fascinated with (He bumped me up in the triage line so he could have me as a patient, “just in case”), so he was in his groove. He even let me know that he’s worked with twice as many rabies patients as anyone else in the U.S. (Which is two. It’s not a common disease).

I just found the whole male/female approach to this funny and interesting.

So, what’s my point, then? Appreciate ethnic and chromosonal differences? Nah. That’d be a good one, but to be honest, I think my point is that I got attacked by a dog and I really want people to know, but I don’t want to out-and-out brag about it.

Which is tough to do. It’s all about balance. I blew it yesterday, the first time someone asked what happened to my neck, because I didn’t want to brag, so I said, “Dog.” Yawn. Boring!

But I don’t want to go the other extreme either (“’Twas a mid-morning just like this one! A howl like the cries of the damned echoed across the park…!). Because both versions are true, they’re just different (See where I’m going with this? Christ, am I clever or what?). The key to a good brag is not to say that both extremes of the story are the same, but to appreciate that each has validity autonomous unto itself, but in conjunction with each other creates a balanced story that is both interesting, yet humble; subtle, yet complex. Not identical, but extremely complementary.

Vive le difference.

One of my last ones was some years ago. Still don’t know her name. She worked at this hipster after-hours place. Thin, clothes were clearly thrift-store but still looked cool, wild hair barely contained in a band, horn-rimmed glasses. Disdain or disinterest in all temporal things. One night I went out with some friends to a show. It was loud. Really, really loud. One of my friends decided to stage-dive and asked me to hold her coat, and be a back-up cushion in case no one caught her. So, fine, I can do that. Only she kept hesitating, and so I was standing just over a foot away from the amplifiers for several minutes. So, she goes, she jumps, she’s wild, a good time is had by all. After the show, we all go to the after-hours place. I’d had quite a bit to drink, so had to wait for a while to drive home. My waitress-crush was working that early morn. Now, understand, I’m buzzed and deaf. My left ear is ringing, and might right ear is ringing in the higher and lower registers, disturbingly mute in the mid-range.

Hey, I’d forgotten all about this until just now. When we left the show, one guy we knew but didn’t like all that much, left early in a huff over something, and when we left some time later, he was standing in the parking lot sulking. He couldn’t leave because two people were having sex on the hood of his car, and it was too weird to tell them to move.

Anyway, at the restaurant, first I informed my friends of my joy that my crush was working at an unknown volume, but definitely too loud. Then we’re sitting and talking (I had gotten some alligator jambalaya because it was that kind of place, then, in my logical-thinking state, decided I might as well have glass of wine too while I waited to sober up. It took a bit to realize I had extended my wait-time by a bit that way). So she came over and filled our water glasses. When she was maybe, maybe, six feet away, I blurted, quite loudly, “Haha! She filled my water glass first! She likes me!”

Yes, she heard me. Everyone heard me. Obviously, I could never return. I probably should have killed myself on the spot, for the sake of retaining dingity. Although, she did inspire the central character in a play I wrote, which would be the first play of mine to get produced, so that’s something, I guess. Muse mission accomplished, even if she didn’t know it. Or care.

Maybe the idea of muses is bullshit, an arrogant idea created by artists to imbue their lusts with a higher sense of purpose. This is probably true much of the time, but I think not always. Just as 99% of art is bad, so, I suppose, must much of the inspiration be bogus as well. I wonder what ever happened to that girl?

It does have a certain bureaucratic appropriateness, though. People always complain how you can never get a group of people to agree on anything, but time is a good example of that. Because, of course, most time is a totally artificial construct – days, months, none of them actually mean anything. It’s Tuesday because we say it is, and for no other reason. If everyone got together and said, “Let’s make today Monday instead, so we can watch Arrested Development again”, it would now be Monday. So I guess it’s somewhat fitting that this incredible thing we’ve gotten most everyone to agree to has clauses and sub-clauses and points of contention. But hey, it’s a start right? Today days of the week, tomorrow world peace.

So it just feels really sad to me, this attempt to further exploit and betray Christmas that Bill O’Reilly has launched. Everything is political right now in the United States. The ideological battle lines that were drawn after the 2000 election have crept into every facet of our lives. Remember the brief but fervent claim that the Penguins in the documentary March of the Penguins embodied conservative values? Now, in an attempt to boost ratings, and in the process increase sales from his own gift shop, O’Reilly launched his “War on Christmas” campaign. The result being that the phrase “merry Christmas” has become hostile, political. A form of verbal violence. I’ve seen signs on stores, and heard people saying “Merry Christmas. And I mean Merry Christmas.” Subtext being: “Merry Christmas and fuck you if you aren’t one of us.” Subtext also being: “I am right-wing. Are you?” A person can’t say merry Christmas, or not say merry Christmas, without it being a political hate statement.

All this under the guise of saving Christmas. Bill O’Reilly doesn’t give a fuck about Christmas. It’s a tool to sell his show. His job is to entertain and if this works? Great. Bill O’Reilly no more believes in what he says that Jay Leno is heart-felt and passionate in the contents of his monologues. And the fact that he would try to gut the parts of the holiday that are still sincere and good and true – and they’re there, amidst all the commercialism and nonsense – under the guise of protecting it is just so sad. I know it’ll pass in a couple years, so no big deal in the grand scheme, just sad.

Yes, we have inadvertently made Christmas the holiest of holidays to our culture’s true God – Consumption. Yes, you can fixate on this element and practically burst into flame at the irony and hypocrisy and crassness of it all, but it isn’t necessary to do this. There is also something really cool about the amalgam of holidays that have converged into what we now call Christmas. All the various pagan rituals with the vague Christian twists make it such a neat patchwork celebration of our most noble human components: Hope; perseverance; a belief in something better. In darkest part of the year we light lights against the bleakness. We create feasts amid stark fields. We celebrate forgiveness and compassion during the time of year it is easiest and most biologically logical to forget others and survive, and as a traditional time of reflection – the turning of a year – arrives. And, yes, we give gifts to remind ourselves of the value of giving, and to remind ourselves about the people close to us. That’s good stuff.

And the “inclusion” attempts are really more divisive. Hanukkah is a minor holiday, and its insulting and ignorant to play it up, and remember it for your two Jewish friends, but then not even be able to name the season in which Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur takes place. Kwanzaa, was a nice idea, but defeats it’s own purpose. It was invented in 1966 by a college professor as a reaction to the Watts riots as a new holiday that could unite the black community. Which it doesn’t, but even if it did, it’s so manufactured, and so flagrantly a “black” holiday with only murky African connections, that it would only create another cultural divide.

Anyway, O’Reilly will have a great Christmas, I’m sure, because his ratings are up and he probably made a lot of money using his show to sell his stuff, and a lot of people will have a good Christmas because they get their Orwellian Minute of Hate and they get to spread anger while feeling self-righteous. But this will pass, like all the other human weaknesses ebb and flow. Like all the bad things that spring up during this holiday and swirl around our noble truths which remain a constant, like a star guiding us

It’s easy to forget what it means to live in freedom, easy to take it for granted. It’s a remarkable gift to have a day to pause, reflect and celebrate this incredible gift that so many have fought, on the battlefield, in the courthouse, from the words of pamphlets and podia, to build and preserve.

I’ve always had to choke back a tear at the unified front we show as a people by the waves of “July 4th, 2005” t-shirts that people buy year after year. Oh sure, they know it’s silly to purchase a shirt for a single day, but they do it, not because it’s cheap consumerism, or because they’re victims of advertising, but to show a renewed commitment to Old Navy. Excuse me, I mean, America. I don’t know why I said Old Navy – a company whose products are made in China. Huh.

Every year I am inspired by the selfless citizens who, in an incredible show of self-sacrifice, injure themselves with explosives – perhaps first having a nip or two from the bottle to steel their nerves – to show empathy and solidarity with those who fought in the revolution. And to the countless throngs who leave their illegal explosives and beer bottles in the street strewn dangerously and carelessly about, as if to remind us what life could be like if we didn’t have laws and a society based on social-contract.

But this year…this year was special. We’ve moved into a new house and a house across the street and decided to dedicate the whole day to celebrating freedom. I was especially impressed to see a young child there to witness this dedication. It was around 2:00pm, while showing this young child how to hold a lit bottle-rocket, that, somehow – in this desert town that is suffering a drought – when one of their rockets landed in the dry brush of the 90 year old woman’s house next door, a fire started! Well, after M and I went over to put the fire out, these selfless citizens joined in with a cereal bowl full of water, by kicking some dirt, and by watching us. They, perhaps a bit discouraged by starting a fire, decided to refrain from explosives for the rest of the day. It saddened me, I must admit, to see their democratic fervor so easily tempered. But I needn’t have worried. The terrorists would be wise to learn that American pride is not so easily squelched! It wasn’t an hour or two later before more people had come to join the celebration and more, bigger, fireworks were being set off! Huzzah!

These brave patriots made sure that everyone around them understood the importance of the day through several acts like shooting bottle-rockets at passing cars shouting timeless phrases from our historical documents, such as, “Fuck you!” and, “Get a new car, asshole!”. It was still daylight, so there was no “rockets’ red glare” but they got the point. Then… I’m sorry, I must pause for moment. The kindness and spirit of the moment was almost too much.

Okay. Then, perhaps concerned that those around them were letting the momentous day slip by without proper reflection sent a wake-up call by – it would turn out – setting fire to four people’s homes and property around them with their bottle-rockets.

Including mine.

After dousing the fire I went over to show my gratitude. In a display of wonderful role-modeling for the young boy, they all showed how the revolutionaries used to evade the British through quick-thinking and subterfuge, by saying that, though they were holding fireworks in their hands (and one guy was hitting a roman candle with a hammer for some reason) that they had not been firing fireworks, but rather the neighbors had been. Going along with the jest, I said that if they happened to see these “neighbors” could they let them know that they had just set my house on fire. At this point, a young woman – who may have been struggling with disability because she stumbled and slurred a bit – offered me advice. If my house was on fire, she said, I should “probably hose that shit down.” Wise counsel, young maiden. Wise counsel. And isn’t that part of what makes America great?  That two people from such different backgrounds could come together to share knowledge and arrive at higher truth.

If someone has set fire to your home? Hose that shit down, brother. Hose that shit down.

While I was doing this, several neighbors phoned some of our civil servants – the police and fire departments, specifically – in order to show our gratitude for all they do. They got together with the brave patriots across the street and discussed several things I missed out on. I had to retreat to my deck and think about the ways we show that we have not forgotten how we got here, and what it means to have the things we have. Can we ever do enough? Can we?

As of yet, I have never once mentioned Karl Rove’s name to someone without the person responding with some sort of “who?” type question. Arguably the most powerful person in the country, and no one knows who he is. Now, as he is being attacked for revealing the name of the undercover CIA agent to the press to punish her husband for speaking out against the war, people only have a vague sense of somebody being attacked for this. And, invariably, the Democrats are going to labeled as zealots.

The thing is, going after Rove over this is about opportunity, rather than gravity of offense. It’s like Elliott Ness arresting Al Capone for income-tax evasion. Of Rove’s many, many terrible crimes and sins, this is not especially notable, but the administration has left him vulnerable. Because he is so behind the scenes and never leaves paper trails, there is never much opportunity to take him down. But now, Bush has said (oddly, since there can be no doubt that he knew everything) that if the person responsible for the act was connected to the White House, this person would be fired, the Democrats see an opportunity to take down the most dangerous man in the country. It’s unfortunate that it has to be a situation where there is no real legal case to make (it’s only a crime to blow an agent’s cover if it’s done with the intention of causing the agent harm – a very difficult thing to prove, and almost certainly not the case here, anyway), only a political one. And Rove has been practically the single-handed molder of the American political landscape for almost twenty years without any official political position – what is really to be accomplished by stripping him of it?

If you are reading this, and don’t know who Rove is, you have obligation to learn. If you believe that Texas is, and always has been, a conservative state, you need to learn who Karl Rove is. If you either think Kerry’s Vietnam War record is questionable, or can’t figure out why that was such a big deal in the election, you need to learn about Karl Rove. If you want to know why gay marriage is a big topic in politics right now…if you want to know why Christian hard-liners align themselves with the Republican Party, a party almost totally at odds with Christian ideals…if you can’t figure out how someone as dumb and unqualified as GW Bush can be president…

There’s an excellent article on him in the Atlantic Monthly a few months back, and a documentary called “Bush’s Brain” which are just two resources to look into.

Two examples from Rove’s career – “how did they turn the election into a question about Kerry’s military history, when Bush not only avoided Vietnam through family connections, but deserted the military, which is a federal crime?” It has long been standard practice to attack your opponent’s weaknesses. Rove teaches to attack their greatest strengths, if it has to be through innuendo and vague assertions, fine. If they’re proven to be untrue? Irrelevant. Once damage is done in the public mind, it’s done. One State Supreme Court race in Alabama that Rove was managing was against a man who had devoted his life to children’s causes. He had been a family court judge for many years, and the things he had seen done to children had prompted him to start several charities and homes. Rove instigated a whisper campaign. How these work is you send some people to college-campuses to spread rumors. College campuses are inhabited with people who A) are forming strong opinions and B) come from all reaches of the area and will take their new opinions home with them to spread there. This campaign was that the opponent was a pedophile. Totally unfounded rumor. It spread quickly, with no official link to Rove and his guy, then was as quickly dismissed as absurd (including by Rove and gang, who publicly decried such a despicable rumor). But now, every time someone saw an ad for this judge, with a child on his lap, or holding hands with kids, the association became slightly disturbing. He lost the race, charities soon distanced themselves from him. He was ruined, and countless needy and abused children were ruined in the wake.

“People say the 2000 election was rigged, but wouldn’t that be an almost impossibly intricate scam to pull?” He’s done it before on smaller scales. Also, I believe, in Alabama, Rove’s candidate lost an election – one of only a couple of elections he’s ever lost. Rove, on seeing that they’d lost, reportedly said, “It’s not over yet. If we can keep this thing alive in the media, I can deliver us the win.” Here’s a couple things they did: during the election, they did similar things as in 2000 – they distributed flyers in predominantly black and liberal neighborhoods reminding them to be sure to get out and vote – but accidentally listing a voting station that didn’t exist, typing the wrong date for voting, or reminding people that if they have any unpaid tickets or outstanding warrants they’ll have to pay those before they can vote (untrue). But then they still lost, so he found ‘outside groups’ to accuse the Democrats of trying to tamper with the results. It was important, though, that it be a slow burn – murmurs of wrongdoing, which grew and grew, tying it up in the supreme court for a while (populated mostly with judges that Rove had gotten in there), so that the public kept hearing and hearing and hearing that the Democrats might have tampered with the votes. When the Democrats came back with accusations against the Republicans, they sounded defensive and desperate. Finally they supreme court decided to hold the election over (there was another one where the court handed the victory to Rove’s guy, like Scalia in 2000, but that’s another story), and – since the Democrats, and by association, the democratic candidate, were now tainted with accusations, they lost.

A while back I was talking politics with some friends. One basically accused me of lying about Rove. Making it up. “If he’s so horrible,” she reasoned, “how come I’ve never heard of him?” Which is exactly what Rove counts on us saying. Which is exactly how he keeps succeeding.