Out of fairness to Karl Rove

I know what you're thinking: the resemblance is uncanny. However, I prefer to adopt Karl Rove's own approach to his political opponents, which is not to question their patriotism, but simply to publicly humiliate them for their judgment. I have heard Karl do this in characterizing the response of Democrats (en bloc, apparently) to 9/11, where he contemptuously dismissed their feeble retaliation as "therapy and lawsuits." Whereas manly men (like Karl, I guess) decided to go to war.

Thus, if Karl Rove is to be criticized, insofar as Heinrich Himmler, former head of the Schutzstaffel (SS) is concerned, it is only to question his judgment in allowing himself to look so much like this infamous Nazi. I have seen Photoshop jobs done on Karl's head in which he's dressed up in the Totenkopf cap of a real SS officer, and you might as well be transported back to the bunker in 1945. I decline, nay, refuse, to reproduce such a photo here, because I'm like Karl on that score: fairness above all. So what if he looks like Heinrich Himmler, one of the truly evil men of the 20th century? That doesn't prove anything at all. It's a cheap shot of the kind Karl Rove abjures. Karl's retention of that "K" spelling of his name, instead of the friendlier, Nordic "C" is proof he doesn't care about meaningless similarities.

Other coincidences are equally unconvincing. Toward the end of the war, Himmler got very nervous about the likelihood he would be captured, tried and executed as a war criminal. He fled Berlin as the Russians approached, altered his appearance (whether he looked more or less like Karl Rove as a result, I don't know), but he was apprehended nonetheless. He tried to make deals with the Allies, but Eisenhower was unmoved. The official version is that he killed himself with cyanide shortly after his capture in order to cheat the hangman's noose. The more likely story, favored by many historians, is that Himmler was beaten to death by British interrogators, which is certainly more emotionally satisfying.

Just because "K"arl has demonstrated some of these same qualities, as the anti-Bush forces have encircled the Administration and the White House has retreated inside its Bunker, doesn't mean that Karl Rove is Himmler. Sure, Karl let his "friend" Scooter Libby take the fall for the Plame matter, even though it was obvious Karl was as involved in this (arguably) treasonous activity as the Vice President's Chief of Staff. And there was that unedifying sight of Karl scuttling off to the grand jury four or five times to "update" his story after he "discovered" one of his missing e-mails, working tirelessly to save his own chubby ass while his colleague went down the tubes. I grant you, it's a similarity in approach, but then rats deserting sinking ships probably all look somewhat alike: frantic, snivelly, selfish. Like some people say Karl is, but I'm determined to be fair. And it's not nice to let Alberto Gonzales twist in the wind up there at the Senate Judiciary Committee, all by himself, when Karl knows full well that it was his idea, part of the vertical monopoly he's installed over the American electoral process, to can those recalcitrant (that is, honest) U.S. Attorneys. Karl won't "testify" himself unless it's on his terms, even if it would take some of the heat off Alberto. Does it matter that Libby was Jewish and Gonzales Hispanic, "races" which Himmler would have considered Untermenschen? To repeat, and I hope for the last time: that's a canard unworthy even of refutation.

You see, Himmler was born in 1900 and died in 1945. Even if, as the conspiracy theorists have it (mainly novelists looking for that old Nazi-in-South-America story line), Himmler survived, he would be 107 years old now. Does Karl Rove look 107? Of course not. And yeah, Himmler was a lousy athlete and always struggled in his relations with women and you immediately start thinking about that video of Karl doing the hip-hop (trying to keep lunch down as you do it) and his creepy epicene appearance, which you know is equally creepy to any woman looking at him, and you start building your case. There is no case. I'm taking a page from Karl's book and elevating my political criticism. Heinrich Himmler, thank God, is dead. Karl Rove, God help us, is alive. Deal with it.