Adios Karl

I especially like this take on Rove's departure. It stresses the underlying incompetence and stupidity that, because of the bluster and media fawning, were mistaken for omnipotence and omniscience.

This is a growing theme: the people and institutions that seem godlike in their power are actually paper tigers, drawing much of their actual power from the appearance of power. Just teh other night I saw The Bourne Ultimatum with Hasana and a friend. Hasana made the argument afterwards that even highly critical depictions of the CIA and associated security apparatus increase the awe with which those institutions are regarded, since, for example, all of the Bourne movies paint a paicture of a ruthlessly effective and powerful CIA, which can only be undone by its own most ruthless and powerful creation.

Meanwhile, the reality is much more like what is shown in Matt Damon's other CIA critique, The Good Shepherd, where the CIA is full of misearble, lonely men who spend most of their time botching operations and are only truly effective at screwing up their lives and the lives of those around them. For substantiation, check out Chalmers Johnson's review of the new book, A Legacy of Ashes (via MaxSpeak).

That's the Rove/Bush/Cheney style to a tee: massive over-reaching motivated by delusions of infallibility and resulting in abject failure. I find it hard to believe that there are still conspiracy theorists on the Left seven years into the reign of these yahoos.

UPDATE: Here's more on the same theme from Digby.