Rove's a genius

I've got to admit it, much as it hurts. You see, here's what he's lately attempting--after years of manipulating a majority of us on other matters. He's got his minions, with one voice, conflating our soldiers' ongoing miseries in the Iraq occupation, with honorable sacrifice in support of the "global war on terror." This will, if successful, not only isolate us peaceniks as traitors but concurrently completely reverse the effect of bad news from Iraq. Now, deaths of American soldiers will be no longer be hidden. They'll lose their nature as outrageous waste and be trumpeted as necessary tragedy.

Rove's campaign is already underway, as can be seen in this AP dispatch, in which the Army spokesman, as part of the revelation that deaths of American troops increased lately, appeared to connect that fact with the announcement by al Qaida in Iraq's recent call to arms. In the past, the two wouldn't be connected, for fear of being evidence of al Qaida's effectiveness. But now, the connection serves the administration's purpose of showing Iraq to be part of the "global war on terror," and the soldiers' deaths as heroic losses in that cause.