David Postman informs us that Seattle Times reports vocally cheered when Karl Rove’s resignation was announced on a newsroom TV.

Postman, defending traditional media “objectivity,” said they shouldn’t have done that.

Dan Savage replied that the departure of Bush’s favorite manipulative operative was something “worth cheering for.” Savage claims, “Maybe the reporters cheered because they, of all people, are in the best position to recognize Rove’s departure as a positive development for the nation—and for the ideal that all journalists everywhere honor the most: the truth.”

I’ve no problem with professional reports having minds, nor with them speaking their minds, even if it’s just amongst themselves.

As for the “Mayberry Machiavelli” himself, Rove was the dirty trickster who always got away with it, and now he’s away with getting away from DC. It’s not as if he had anything left to do for Bush, having played such a big hand in every ruination, disgrace, and failure of Worst-Preznit-Ever. Rove’s first love has always been the next election cycle, for which he’ll surely work as a string-puller for the GOP or one candidate. Expect the anti-Hillary mud to start slinging, and soon.

On this day we commemorate baseball, hot dogs, apple pie, Chevrolet, and, oh yeah, the brave actions of our forefathers n’ foremothers lo those 23 decades ago. They didn’t get it all right, not right away (slaves, women not voting, etc.). But they got us started on the path toward equality under the law. They stood their ground against the greatest global military power of their day. They sought not just autonomy from the monarchy, but a better way to run a country. They fought to replace the rule of monarchs with the rule of law. They got out from under the thumb of a capricious, incompetent, power-mad ruler, a king named, well, you know.

Among other people, Keith Olbermann suggests we desperately now need to get out from under our current mad monarch’s thumb–not to overthrow our current system of governance but to renew and reclaim it, to take it back from the despotic elite who would destroy it from within. I can’t think of a better wish for this day.

If the Democratic Congressional leaders are too bureaucratic (i.e., chicken) to act toward Bush/Cheney’s immediate removal, we all will have to put out the ol’ screws of public opinion to get ’em movin’. If they still won’t, we’ll have to “route around” the blockage, as they say in Internet jargon.

By this I don’t mean overthrowing the whole US government. That wouldn’t succeed; and even if it did, something even more brutal might emerge.

No, our task is both more subtle and more obscure. We have to make the current federal executive occupants irrelevant even if they remain for the duration of their term.

…might not have an answer for the future of the Viaduct or for unaffordable housing, but it’s ready to take one really serious move–banning microwave popcorn from municipal offices.

…appeared on The Daily Show, and Jon Stewart, that belovedly shameless punster, just had to open with a wisecrack (that fell flat with the studio audience) about the candidate’s “lovely wife and her delicious fishsticks.”

While Rep. Paul is not related to Mrs. Paul’s (which was founded by two guys, natch), our own state does have an ex-politician from the frozen-seafood biz.

…the link below, you’ll love Slate’s semi-comprehensive, “Illustrated Guide to Republican Scandals.”

…keeping track of all the DC corruption, graft, and assorted sleaze? Just consult the handy-dandy “Bush/Cheney Scandalist.”

…of this web-corner (well, most) should know that there are no depths of corruption to which the Bushbots will not stoop. Yet it still surprises when we learn, piece by piece, each depth to which they have stooped. Today’s lesson: The transformation of the Dept. of Justice’s voter-rights section into a branch of the right-wing goon squads.

…sets in, the remaining loyal Bushbots get more transparent about their real beliefs and goals. Today’s lesson: A Wall St. Journal oped proposing that the Constitution actually allows Presidents to assume dictatorial powers, and that Presidents should assume such powers when they see fit to do so.

The author of this particular piece is no mere talk-radio goon. Harvard prof Harvey Mansfield, as profiled by Glenn Greenwald, is one of Leo Strauss’s U. of Chicago ideologues, an outspoken misogynist and homophobe, and a fawning admirer of Machiavelli. He articulately wraps his arguments in the fanciest of rhetorical flourishes. He creates structured arguments that follow from their initial premises, with all the skill of a great debater.

He is also full of shit.

Greenwald claims Mansfield’s particular slickly-packaged shit accurately expresses what the Bush machine really believes. I’m not so sure. To ascribe Mansfield’s forensic cleverness to the likes of Cheney and Rove, let alone the Chimp himself, is to imply that they (or their inner circle) are capable of logical processing at a sufficient level.

More likely, the central Bushbots have simply acted on lizard-brain tyrannical pasison. This leaves it to the peripheral Bushbots such as Mansfield to invent a reasoning behind the power-madness; just as the Soviets’ old “ministers of ideology” invented reasoning behind the Stalinists’ power-madness.

Daniel Eran writes today about the long-in-the-works failings of Microsoft. But he could also be writing about the national political scene:

“The weakness of power not only cultivates poor strategic direction, but also tends to focus attention on covering up mistakes in the media rather than solving the actual problems. This just makes things worse, particularly when that subterfuge is later exposed.Interestingly, part of the downfall of monopolies comes from the delayed discipline of reality checks offered by the media, which tends to cheer on the gratuitous sloth of former glories long after any celebration is deserved.

Counter-intuitively, the media is just not very good at pointing out that the emperor has no clothes; once enough children point it out for them however, the embarrassment becomes a great story and the press begins beating up the same celebrated darlings they once revered as untouchable.”

…the fanatics revert to old patterns. Today’s lesson: the “experts” who’ve dusted off the ol’ Vietnam-era “domino theory” and applied it to Iraq.

…got hounded off the air due to a particularly dumb racist “joke,” some of us wondered if other hate talkers would get the spotlight shone on their own dubious antics. Sure enough, the king of haters himself, Mr. Limbaugh, is drawing attention for airing a Barack Obama minstrel song, performed by a white guy impersonating Al Sharpton.

The ’80s-’90s Seattle political gadfly and ex-City Councilmember rode into office as a champion of “neighborhoods” vs. “downtown interests,” like so many local politicians. Unlike most of them, he didn’t suddenly switch “sides” once ensconced in power.

When Chong ran for mayor in 1997, most of Seattle’s progressives latched onto him. The Stranger endorsed opponent (and victor) Paul Schell. The endorsement was the decision of publisher Tim Keck, who saw Schell as a competent leader and Chong as a tinhorn rabble-rouser. We’ll never know how Chong would have handled the ’99 WTO protests that buried Schell’s political future. Chong ran for mayor again in 2001, but already had cancer and didn’t put up much of a campaign.

…a handy list of 10 steps toward a fascist nation; while “Gareth” ties Wolf’s list in with the recent organized disruption in Boston of a theatrical monologue by our ex-local pal Mike Daisey.

I was once, briefly in the presence of theater/film/game-show legend Kitty Carlisle Hart, at a local rally for and with 1988 Presidential candidate Michael Dukakis. Afterwards, my female companion of the afternoon quipped, “Will the real Michael Dukakis please stand up?,” encapsulating this successful governor’s inability to “brand” himself on the national stage.

…Sonics/Storm owners now say they wanna split town, after the State Legislature failed to sign off on one singularly lopsided arena-subsidy proposal. The cynics are already saying that was the owners’ plan all along–to make one halfhearted offer and then promptly go east.