The Ultimate Lump Of Coal

It's just not the Democrats' week, is it?

After the (for them) tragic loss of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (the "human face on the futility of the illegal U.S. occupation of Iraq") just four days earlier, the DisLoyal Opposition was knocked reeling into paroxysms of spittle-flecked hyperventilation this morning by the announcement of the decision by AnythingICanFind-gate Special Persecutor Patrick Fitzgerald that [BUM-BUM-BAAAAAAAAH!] White House Deputy Chief of Staff and political Jedi master Karl "the Great" Rove will not be indicted:

On June 12, 2006, Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald formally advised us that he does not anticipate seeking charges against Karl Rove.

In deference to the pending case, we will not make any further public statements about the subject matter of the investigation. We believe that the Special Counsel's decision should put an end to the baseless speculation about Mr. Rove's conduct.

Hardly earth-shattering to anybody who's actually been paying attention to the actual goings-on in this trumped-up partisan melodrama. Indeed, the reasonable observer can be forgiven for drawing the very same conclusion Fitzgerald has finally been forced to concede seven and a half fricking months ago when the SP announced Lewis Libby's indictment but not Rove's.

I guess the moral of that story is to never underestimate the capacity for blind faith from the self-proclaimed "reality-based community." It makes the rhetorical self-discipline of Byron York's arid, buttoned-down description of it all the more impressive:

A decision by Fitzgerald - one way or the other - had been anticipated for months. There was widespread speculation that Rove might face charges for lying to Fitzgerald's grand jury much like those filed by Fitzgerald last October against Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff. Now, it appears that will not happen. And so far, at least, no one has been charged with violating any of the underlying laws in the case - either the Intelligence Identities Protection Act or the Espionage Act. [emphases added]

That's like Elliot Ness trying to nail Al Capone for three full years with unlimited prosecutorial resources and not even getting him on a parking ticket. An analogy that might appear self-defeating at first glance until you remember what Karl Rove is truly guilty of in Donk eyes: kicking their asses for three election cycles running and inflicting eight years of "Bushitler" on "their" America.

You have to understand that in order to grasp anything else about their cataclysmic collective meltdown at this news. This wasn't "anticipation"; that's what you call the time you wait for the ketchup to pour out of the bottle. Nor was it "widespread speculation," which suggests an acknowledgement that the object of discussion might not transpire after all. This was certitude on the order of religious mania. Liberals were positive that Karl the Great was going to be frog-marched by the partisanazzi in an orange jump suit that would make him look like a giant yam. It was their new catechism. It was to them so sure that they spoke of it as if it had already happened. Just like Bush "misleading the country into war" and Halliburton fixing Ohio voting machines in 2004 and Ken Lay's menage o tois in the White House residence and Rove cutting a secret deal with Osama bin Laden to use 9/11 to guarantee Bush a second term to the Bush family paying off the Supreme Court to "install" Dubya in 2000. It's all paranoid, mentally ill BS, disproved and debunked six ways from Sunday, the verbal feces of mental midgets with brittle egos and mouths a Post Honeycomb craver would envy who are utterly incapable of reconciling "real" reality with what their ideology demands reality to be.

The mindset was symbolized by this picture of Rove in an AP story on a speech he gave a month ago:

That was no freudian slip. And it was delivered with all the subtlety of a jackhammer to the nads.

And now reality has bitten them again. Hard. In the...well, you-know-where. And the pain....is indescribable...which helps explain their disorganized retreat even further up that billious river in Egypt:

"How could this snake slither away from an indictment?" complained one visitor to the Huffington Post Web site - where bloggers had confidently predicted that Fitzgerald's probe would yield up to twenty-three White House indictments.

"This man lied to the D.C. Grand Jury and he gets off scot-free? Where's the justice?" the same poster complained.

Another disappointed Huffocrat simply lamented: "There is no God."

Over at the Daily Kos, reaction was even more harsh:

"This is appalling, and any D.C. jury, and many Main Street USA juries, would find them guilty . . . It really, really is a bad precedent to allow a criminal to have free rein in the White House."

Another Daily Kos'er was in abject denial, insisting; "I personally will believe nothing about this until I hear it from Patrick Fitzgerald himself."

Still another Kos'er saw a silver lining in the Rove non-indictment cloud, explaining: "If Rove flipped, then Fitzgerald believes it will give him Cheney. And he may damn well be right."

We can't leave the DUmmies out of this wailfest (h/t Double-H):

This doesn't make sense Is it possible that Rove was actually indicted on May 12 like truthout reported, but somehow Bush got involved to stop it? Maybe Bush told Fitz that he was going to pardon Rove so Fitz dropped it. Or maybe Rove has some dirt on Fitz so Fitz dropped it.

Or the New York Times (h/t Tigerhawk), which spun the story as, "a barely dodged bullet, Rove having been 'dangerously close to possible charges.'" Which, in plain, non-liberal English means he's I-N-N-O-C-E-N-T, a word that is as vanished from left-wing vocabularies as their respect for due process, the rule of law, and the democratic process.

Even the DUmmie at the titular apex of the Donk Collective couldn't control his compulsion for submersion in ego-salving fables:

If Karl Rove had been indicted it would have been for perjury. That does not excuse his real sin which is leaking the name of an intelligence operative during the time of war. He doesn’t belong in the White House. If the President valued America more than he valued his connection to Karl Rove, then Karl Rove would have been fired a long time ago. So I think this is probably good news for the White House, but its not very good news for America. ...

Was Howard Dean's use of the term "sin" part of his contrived "outreach" to evangelical voters? If so, he picked a highly ineffective vehicle for his less-than clandestine phoniness. The whole paragraph is a nullity. Dean thinks Rove doesn't belong in the White House because he thinks George W. Bush doesn't belong in the White House. Since his party can't impeach and remove Bush, they're attempting the next best thing by agitating for Rove's demise, since they fear and loathe him as the "brains behind the throne."

And they came up empty. Again. Leaving them in the same dilemma they've been in for the past five and a half years: accept that "the Shrub" got the best of them, let go of their partisan rage, "move on," drop all the scandalmongering and Ameriphobic agitating, and start building a coherent and saleable agenda for 2008 and unifying around an electable standardbearer (i.e. what the GOP, minus the scandalmongering and sedition, did in 1999-2000) - or burrow even deeper into the warren of extremist insanity.

Yeah, Rove has agreed to turn state's evidence on Dick Cheney. That's the ticket. Gotta be worth at least another, oh, say, five months of "widespread speculation." And then Speaker Pelosi and Co-Majority Leaders Murtha and Jefferson and Judiciary Committee Chairman Conyers can get cracking on finishing the coup de tat Al Gore started.

Hey, that's as much of a sure thing as the indictment of Karl the Great. Don't believe me? Just ask 'em.

UPDATE 6/14: Looks like "Yellowcake Joe" is gonna sue....