Heather Wilson is still following the Republican playbook: appear confident when confidence isn’t warranted, declare victory when it is still in doubt and act outraged when anyone dares to disagree.

Read the insolence from a Wilson spokesperson:

“If there is an honest and open counting, Heather Wilson is going to be re-elected without any questions.”

That’s right, the outcome is certain and the data will fit the results. You will not question this! Notice the acid this throws on the process: if we don’t win, you cheated. Simple. Incendiary. Rovian.

Karl Rove’s still in power (and in the front row at the Bush’s press conference). Though Rove is the Architect of Victory in the same sense as Rumsfeld, Rove has not shared Rumsfeld’s fate.

As for Rummy, did you hear his parting assertion that Bush and his cadre are the few who really understand what’s going on in this, “the first war of the 21st century” (the assumptions of that phrase nauseate me). These guys never knew what is going on, just what they wanted to be going on. They are delusional.

CIA-ocracy

Can anyone tell me how many of the top people in Washington are former CIA directors? Seems like a disproportionate number, going all the way back to Duhbya’s daddy. Sure, CIA people are smart and well-informed. Never mind the secret prisons. mjh

GOP House of Horrors

Tallahassee Democrat By Eugene Robinson, WASHINGTON POST

George W. Bush used to claim he was ”a uniter, not a divider,” but that was a long time ago. These days, he’d probably try to deny the quote the same way he tried to disown ”stay the course.” The Karl Rove formula for political victory has been to draw a bright line between ”us” and ”them” and then paint those on the other side not as opponents but as monsters.

Thus Bush openly accused those who disagree with his policy in Iraq of giving aid and comfort to the enemy. ”The Democrat approach in Iraq comes down to this: The terrorists win and America loses,” he said the other day.

White House Upbeat About GOP Prospects – washingtonpost.com By Michael Abramowitz, Washington Post Staff Writer

Amid widespread panic in the Republican establishment about the coming midterm elections, there are two people whose confidence about GOP prospects strikes even their closest allies as almost inexplicably upbeat: President Bush and his top political adviser, Karl Rove.

Some Republicans on Capitol Hill are bracing for losses of 25 House seats or more. But party operatives say Rove is predicting that, at worst, Republicans will lose only 8 to 10 seats — shy of the 15-seat threshold that would cede control to Democrats for the first time since the 1994 elections and probably hobble the balance of Bush’s second term.
– – –

Rove thinks he has the winning slogan:

Vote Republican
It can’t get any worse

Counting The Iraqi Dead By Eugene Robinson

[T]he exact number [of Iraqi civilians killed] is not the point. Rather, it’s the scope and scale of the carnage.

Late last year President Bush gave an off-the-cuff estimate of 30,000 Iraqi civilian deaths — this after the administration had steadfastly refused to acknowledge even trying to count the Iraqi dead. Now the administration is willing to allow that perhaps 50,000 civilians have died. It is unclear whether any science at all has gone into these estimates or whether they were essentially pulled out of a hat.

600,000 Iraqis Killed By War, Credible? – Early Warning by William M. Arkin

In an editorial yesterday, [the Washington Times] commented on the Hopkins numbers, opining that probably over 100,000 Iraqis have died: “The independent British organization Iraq Body Count reports 44,000-49,000 deaths, which is probably too low. President Bush’s “about 30,000” in December was obviously too low. The Iraqi group Iraqiyun reported 128,000 between the invasion and July 2005, which is probably closer to the mark. Extrapolated to the present, the figure would be in the high 100,000s or low 200,000s. But nearly 400,000 couldn’t possibly be the answer.”

Who would have thought it, that the anti-war Iraq Body Count would now be hailed as “too low” in its accounting? Who would have thought that the right wing newspaper would be urging acceptance of a number four times larger than the anti-war group for assuming Iraqi civilian casualties?

ABQjournal: Letters to the Editor

Democrats, Media, ACLU The Real Terrorist Threat

INSTEAD OF being united to fight the war on terror and the war in Iraq, the Democratic politicians, the far-left news media and the ACLU are doing everything they can to keep our country in disarray. Just because they don’t like President Bush, they do everything they can to hurt our country.

Democratic politicians, far-left news media and the ACLU are the biggest terrorists in this country. They may not be killing Americans and American soldiers directly, but indirectly they are.

Foreign terrorists don’t have to come here to attack us, the above named organizations are doing it for them. Our country is safer in spite of them. They oppose the Bush administration on everything he tries to do to protect our country.

John Kerry claimed he had a plan for everything. If he and the Democrat politicians care about our country why don’t they come up with those plans as Democratic proposals to help our county and get credit as their ideas. Everything from the Democrats is negative, never anything positive.

LOUIS GALLEGOS
Albuquerque

I don’t mean to be negative, but I’m positive Gallegos is a divider, not a uniter — and an idiot, to boot.

Here’s an idea: stop equating those who won’t kiss the president’s ass with the terrorists. mjh

Bush hits Democrats on national security By NEDRA PICKLER , Associated Press writer

Bush persisted with the strategy that has brought Republican victory in the last two elections — campaigning on national security with some tax talk thrown in.

“If the other bunch gets elected, they’re going to raise your taxes,” Bush charged during a breakfast fundraiser for Rep. Rick Renzi at the posh Camelback Inn near Phoenix.

Worse yet, Bush said, some Democrats are putting national security at risk ….

“[V]ote Republican for the safety of the United States of America,” Bush said to applause from the donors who together gave $450,000 to see him speak ….