Karl Rove, headless chickens, pipe dreams

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Sometimes I daydream about the lucky Cathy Wolfman. According to the Houston Chronicle, Wolfman and George W. Bush got engaged in 1967, but she got away.

Oh, to have sidestepped the commitments we have with George. Sigh.

But anyway, I’ve got this wicked smart friend.

He’s a lawyer.

When I heard about Bush’s newest breakup, I called my friend to see what it meant for the rest of us, you know – legally speaking.

I asked him if Karl Rove could be effectively subpoenaed now. And my wicked smart friend said, “Sure and he can ignore it like Harriet Myers and others have and the House or Senate Judiciary Committees will run out the remainder of the president’s term, trying to make him comply.”

My friend continued, “By then Rove’ll have worked 15 months or so, getting paid in big bills, for a company that’s smart enough to hire a man whose got the president’s ear.”

Then my bud adds, “And because there’s nobody really after these bums in the White House, the American public will turn their attention to the new election and they’ll all get away with it.”

I slumped in my chair.

When I heard about Rove stepping down, I thought maybe ole Scooter Libby had finally coughed up those stories he had promised about the administration. Then I remember Bush commuted his sentence; he won’t be talking.

According to a Rolling Stone Magazine article, Wolfman said her engagement ended because “We were very young. It just kind of died.”

Well that can’t be the reason for the Rove/Bush breakup.

In my mind’s eye, I see rats leaving a sinking ship. But Rove and the other defectors never got billed as rats. No, we’re talking special counsel: insiders and loyal confidants jumping overboard.

I wonder if George Bush likes to sing, because he might like this Harry Chapin tune:

Dance band on the Titanic

Sing “Nearer, my God, to Thee”

The iceberg’s on the starboard bow

Won’t you dance with me

Mama stood cryin’ at the dockside

Sayin’ “Please son, don’t take this trip”

I said “Mama, sweet Mama, don’t you worry none

Even God couldn’t sink this ship”

But that analogy won’t work either because on the Titanic, the honorable band did go down with the ship. Bush’s band is throwing the women and children (veterans, elderly and middle class) overboard and high-tailing it to the lifeboats themselves. Rumsfeld, Miers, Rove, all of them.

George Bush’s ship of state, tanking as it is, listing woefully to one side and ready to capsize, barely balances above the water – thanks to a number of foreign investors last week, it may keep floating until January ’09 – while the long boats carry the band away! And now they have conductor on board!

But my wicked smart lawyer friend said that my analogy was still all wet.

He said that Rove composed an opus that made the administration virtually immune to oversight. He said that once Rove got the orchestra in their places, he found some noncompliant attorneys general, guys and gals who wouldn’t play the masterpiece as written, and had them fired and replaced with loyal cronies who would.

But beyond that, he felt my analogy hit a sour note. Why? Because without Rove; Bush has no brain. You know, there’s even a book called “Bush’s Brain,” which is about how Karl Rove’s consistently more successful at thinking for the president than the president is.

Instantly the creepiest images of a chicken without a head overtook me: body flopping around the White House, brain gone home to Texas.

So what if my friend’s analogy proved more accurate? Heck, I started liking it better myself. I mean, this could be great news. If Bush’s brain leaves, then the rest of that chicken can’t last much longer.

Growing downright giddy, certain Bush won’t make it alone, I Googled “headless chickens” to see how much longer we had to put up with his flailing incompetence.

Mike, a chicken who “lost’ his head in 1945, lived for another 18 months; during that time, George W. Bush was born. Prophetic coincidence or uncanny fluke? You decide.

Pat LaMarche of Yarmouth is the author of “Left Out In America: the State of Homelessness in the United States.” She can be contacted at PatLaMarche@hotmail.com.