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" In the last campaign, Karl Rove decided that the way to beat Barack Obama was to turn him into some combination of Sportin&amp;#039; Life and Billy Strayhorn. (That attempting to both black-bait and gay-bait the opposition was something that should gag the average maggot never has meant much to Rove, as he has spent a career making ill higher forms of life than himself.) Of Obama, Rove opined, &amp;quot;...even if you never met him, you know this guy. He&amp;#039;s the guy at the country club with the beautiful date, holding a martini and a cigarette that stands against the wall and makes snide comments about everyone who passes by.&amp;quot;  Well, that worked so well that Rove has decided to work the same noxious theme this time around, too:      You know, Barack Obama is a &amp;quot;celebrity&amp;quot; who really isn&amp;#039;t interested in the hard work of governing \u2014 as was, apparently, the guy Rove put in the Oval Office. I don&amp;#039;t know how this ad is supposed to work. The people who think the president is a show-pony didn&amp;#039;t vote for him last time and won&amp;#039;t vote for him this time, and wouldn&amp;#039;t vote for him if he turned water into wine on national TV. The people who think Obama&amp;#039;s turn on Jimmy Fallon, and his Al Green karaoke, are marks of fundamental cool are unlikely to turn against him because of that. Young people are going to look at this ad and wonder why the old boring white guys are trying to harsh the national mellow. My answer is a long-game answer. At some level, Rove, and the plutocrats for whom he works, know that it&amp;#039;s better than 50-50 that the president will be re-elected. The goal in the campaign, therefore, will be to muddy him sufficiently that the already limited time a second-term president has when anybody&amp;#039;s paying attention to him will be relatively worthless. That, and some thinly disguised stroking of the base&amp;#039;s racist g-spots and you&amp;#039;ve got a two-fer that would appeal to a guy who&amp;#039;s only ever been interested in politics to work out whatever personal issues the tiny little man inside him has with the rest of the world. Of course, if we&amp;#039;re judging this on performance value alone, well, maybe Dancin&amp;#039; Dave Gregory can analyze that better than I can... this Sunday on Meet The Press! EARLIER: Our President Has Soul. Ain&amp;#039;t Nothin&amp;#039; Wrong with That. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a13800/american-crossroads-obama-cool-ad-8412675/>