PROFESSOR ROVE'S 67-TO-1 RATIO

Much buzz has arisen about comments made yesterday by Bush advisor/puppeteer Karl Rove. No, not about his bold description of the political implications of last week's election (though that was not without it's charm, if he wants to interpret the election as a monster shift to the right in the views of the average American voter, he does so at his own risk). The real jewel comes at the end of this NY Times piece:

Before his remarks on the election, Mr. Rove gave a 30-minute speech to an audience of about 600 on the qualities of a successful president, citing obvious examples like Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt and some, perhaps, not so obvious, like McKinley.

The audience included several dozen protesters who held signs critical of various issues, including war against Iraq. But they were largely quiet and respectful. In the question-and-answer session, a woman politely asked Mr. Rove if the administration was concerned over the possibility that 200,000 innocent Iraqis might die in an American-led invasion.

Mr. Rove responded, "I'm more concerned about the 3,000 who died on 9/11." (emphases mine)

Hey Karl, we know that you're pretty handy with PowerPoint, howbout whipping up a chart that shows how one American life is equal to about sixty-seven Iraqis, as you just said. Are there similar ratios for other countries, like North Korea? Syria?... Saudi Arabia? And can they follow your lead and have similar ratio policies to your own? You can imagine that upon hearing this, Crown Prince Abdullah or someone is saying to himself, "Oh boy, not only can I pre-emptively invade another sovereign nation if I want to, but I can also kill a huge amount of their civilians proportional to my own armed forces! Thanks, George and Karl!"

Furthermore, given the well-documented, uh, "connection" between Saddam and Al Qaeda, Rove might as well have said "I'm more concerned with the deaths of Lisa 'Left-Eye' Lopez and Elvis Presley."

Friggin chickenhawk.