Punk Ass Bitch or Bitch Ass Punk?

Earlier this week, there was another high profile so-called defection from within the Bush administration. I guess he’d had too much damned Kool-Aid, and it just didn’t taste as sweet anymore.

A top strategist for the Texas Democrats who was disappointed by the Bill Clinton years, Mr. Dowd was impressed by the pledge of Mr. Bush, then governor of Texas, to bring a spirit of cooperation to Washington. He switched parties, joined Mr. Bush’s political brain trust and dedicated the next six years to getting him to the Oval Office and keeping him there. In 2004, he was appointed the president’s chief campaign strategist.

Looking back, Mr. Dowd now says his faith in Mr. Bush was misplaced.

In a wide-ranging interview here, Mr. Dowd called for a withdrawal from Iraq and expressed his disappointment in Mr. Bush’s leadership.

Is that the whole story? As Sidney Blumenthal points out in today’s Salon, it is not.

Dowd has much to add to history as an eyewitness. What was Rove's involvement in the independent expenditure negative campaign against Sen. John McCain in the Republican South Carolina primary of 2000? White House chief of staff Andrew Card said in 2002 about the propaganda campaign for the Iraq war, "From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August." What was the marketing done to hone various rationales for the invasion of Iraq? In the 2004 campaign, exactly how was homosexuality targeted? What were the links between the Bush campaign and the Swift-boating of John Kerry? What polling was performed to determine how to discredit Kerry's war record? After the indictment of Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, Scooter Libby, what polls did Dowd take to inform White House positioning? These are only a few of the questions that Dowd can illuminate with his special knowledge. But so far, his conversion lacks a confession.

The crux of Blumenthal’s column is that this is not just a case of disillusionment and redemption by speaking out against your former master. This is Dowd reading the polls, seeing that being associated with Bush is not as good for business as it used to be and coming out against him in the most tepid way possible. Now he expects to move on with his life, gain riches with his new consulting firm and leave his life with Bush behind - there was nothing more to be squeezed out of that unpopular stone.

Best of luck, Matthew. You helped the King of the Fuck Ups and his minions destroy this country. I hope your little therapy session with the Times keeps the night terrors at bay.