Transparent and sad

President Bush's chief political strategist Karl Rove has proved before that there's not much he won't do in pursuit of political gain. That's why it should come as no surprise that he said the following during a self-serving speech delivered Wednesday a few miles north of the World Trade Center remains:

"Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers."

More from the same speech: "Al Jazeera now broadcasts the words of Senator [Dick] Durbin to the Mideast, certainly putting our troops in greater danger. No more needs to be said about the motives of liberals."

Democrats worked themselves into a furious froth over the address, which likely is just what Rove intended. One of the first rules of politics is "blame them, not us" -- if you can't defend your own policies, attack the other side until scrutiny turns elsewhere.

With Bush's approval rating tanking and 59 percent of Americans now opposing the Iraq war, Rove's over-the-top speech was a brazen attempt to shift the public's focus away from Bush's failings and to pin the blame for them on someone, anyone other than the people in charge of the White House and Congress.

It won't work.