"I'm a uniter, not a divider" -- my ass!

It's almost to the point where anything that comes from King George's mouth, you can just assume the opposite.

Harold Meyerson recently wrote about the Nixon parallels with this current administration:

....by nurturing such deep divisions in the body politic, Nixon created the very kind of political landscape on which he was a master at maneuvering....Democrats railed against the war in Vietnam; Nixon railed against the demonstrators and Democrats, whom he gleefully conflated, at home. It was an asymmetric conflict, and Nixon won it going away, defeating George McGovern in 1972 by more than 20 percentage points.

Today Republicans in general and Karl Rove in particular have resurrected the Nixon game plan. They are not mounting a point-by-point defense of the administration's plan for Iraq, not least because the administration doesn't really have a plan for Iraq....[They're] not really defending the war per se but attacking the Democrats for seeking to end it. This was Nixonism of the highest order. [Yet they go Nixon one better by playing it both ways, ala General Casey's September withdrawal plan].

....That the president's war of choice has created a disaster in Iraq so profound that no course of action is likely to result in a safe, livable nation, then, may perversely work in the president's favor....The Democrats think too much, say the Republicans; such men are dangerous. Vote for us; we're dumb but tough.

Yes, this strategy (brawn over brains, might over right) has worked before with an electorate that doesn't think enough, following instead the whims of their emotions -- something Rove is a master at stoking and manipulating. Such voters should feel ashamed and "dirty" in the morning, badly in need of a shower.

But as long as this is the sad state of affairs, how can you even try to do the right thing and win?