State of the Onion

Oh, sure, there were a couple genuine moments -- the hug between the Iraqi activist and the mother of the dead Marine from the President's old stomping grounds will go down as one of the most poignant moments in Union Speech history -- but this was written for the next twenty years. This was Rove putting his stamp on the next generation of American politics, and it's all there to see if you just look carefully enough. The Schmoo has no transcript before him to compare, so he'll focus on the last paragraph of the speech -- traditionally the most powerful rhetorical moment anyway.

The President began by invoking FDR. Now, that's probably been done many times since the 1940s, but think about it -- doesn't it seem a little odd that the founder of the great social experiment that powered Democrats for the next forty years would be honored by one of the most conservative chief executives we've ever had?

Not if you're deliberately laying the groundwork to create a socially conservative, fiscally libertarian Republican revolution for the first half of the 21st century.

He then went on to mention the abolition of slavery as something America was a worldwide leader in (roughly paraphrased). Well, America was one of the last countries, actually, to eliminate slavery, but that's besides the point. Why would you say something like that as an upbeat moment to power your speech home? Doesn't that strike you as a little odd?

Think about it. Who would this appeal to? Black voters. And, on a more in-depth level, which party was responsible for ramming abolition through and fighting the War of Northern Aggression (aw, shucks, the Schmoo's Southern roots are showing!) to defend it? That's right, the Party of Lincoln, the Republicans. This is specifically part of the Rove Doctrine -- convert at least 30% of black voters by convincing them that Republicans are on their side, and you've seriously damaged the most hard-core Democratic constituency there is.

The Schmoo will not point out the hypocrisy of Republican efforts against the civil rights movement (Strom Thurmond, I'm looking at you!), or suggest that African-American voters can be so easily duped. But he observes that certain components of the Rove Doctrine are probably going to be very effective. For example:

You never lost votes by decrying homosexuality in this country, and Karl Rove knows it.

Ergo, the Marriage Amendment rears its ugly head again. Now, the Schmoo still believes that there are enough Constitutional traditionalists out there that any Amendment, flag-burning, marriage protection, or child labor (still on the books for ratification, since 1937), is going to take a monster swell before it gets passed -- but we're closer to it now than we ever have been. And Rove will demagogue this issue (ed. -- yes, I know demagogue isn't a verb. Fuck off.) through the 2006 elections and beyond.

As for the rest of the close, the President observed American victory over Hitler and Communists. Hmmmm. The other two biggest traditional supporters of Democrats: Jews and immigrants.

Oh, the trial lawyers? Yeah, they're going down. Once the judicial fight is over -- if it ever is -- the next big issue for the Senate is going to be "frivolous lawsuits". Don't believe me? They're holding hearings on it right now.

Karl Rove plays hardball, and he plays it well. He knows that in politics as in poker, the time to attack is when you've got aces, not deuce-seven. The Dems are simply reeling right now, and there is not a chance in hell that he's not going to press every single advantage he's got. You think it was coincidence that the Iraqi elections were scheduled only three days before the State of the Union? No fuckin' way. Rove didn't know for sure that his boy was going to win in November, but he wanted to set the stage in case he did. This is the biggest speech the President will give all year, unless another terrorist incident happens. There's no other event that would get this kind of coverage. In a twisted way, Rove managed to use the President's widespread unpopularity to his distinct advantage; he knew this speech would be watched by a large number of people who would normally not pay any attention, because there is so much anxiety in this country right now about Iraq, Social Security, and everything else.

The battle lines have been drawn. That speech was a call to arms. Did you hear the huzzahs from the right side of the chamber when the President demanded an up-or-down vote for judicial nominees? Or when he slyly mentioned "legislating from the bench"? The real question is, are the Democrats ready? Or will they founder for the next year, losing battle after battle, until there is no more war to fight?

Well played, Karl Rove. Well played.