Castro and Karl Rove, Commentators

Fidel just won't go away and, like Bush's Brain in Newsweek, he has to give us his expertise on '08.

“I enjoyed observing the embarrassing position of all the presidential candidates in the United States,” Castro wrote this week about reaction to his stepping down in a column for Cuba's state-run newspaper. “One by one, they found themselves forced to proclaim their immediate demands to Cuba, so as not to alienate a single voter.”

Castro also had a few words about theme of change that has dominated the campaign: "Half a century of blockade was not enough for the chosen few. 'Change, change, change!' they shouted in unison. I agree. Change!--but in the United States."

After noting the first President Bush's endorsement of John McCain, Castro remarked on the current President's visit to Africa, "I don't know what he's doing there."

Karl Rove could tell him. Now that they both have time on their hands, the Western Hemisphere's two leading political manipulators might want to get together and exchange secrets of the trade.

If Fidel wants to learn a thing or two, he might watch 60 Minutes Sunday night, for an interview with a Rove operative explaining how the Master ordered her to take sexually compromising pictures of a Democratic governor. That's Rove's definition of an "embarrassing position."

Kos and Karl Rove, Kolumnists

It's a little like watching your prim maiden aunt get sloshed at Thanksgiving dinner to see Newsweek hiring Markos Moulitsas and Karl Rove as contributors. Cutesy can be embarrassing.

For the Kos founder, the question of being co-opted comes up in much the way the MSM glommed on to the hippies in the 1960s and packaged their rebellion out of existence. Moulitsas will have to be careful to preserve his edge.

Rove is another kettle of stale fish. Instead of letting him slink away after poisoning American politics, here he comes as Elder Statesman to pontificate in a magazine owned by the heirs of Kay Graham, who backed Woodward and Bernstein in taking down Nixon's White House illegality.

What next? Is Time dickering to sign up Dick Cheney after January 2009?

Empty-Calories News

The New York Times is too dignified for silly-season journalism, August fluff when the world slows down. But this year, especially from Washington, there is a lot of fact-free fare.

The other day, there was “Competitors, Once Collegial, Now Seem Cool,” about Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Today we get “First Father: Tough Times on Sidelines,” 31 paragraphs of empty-calories reporting about Bush 41 and Bush 43.

Based on “interviews with a broad range of people close to both presidents,” the piece reveals that the elder Bush “finds it tough to watch his son get criticized from the sidelines.”

From a combination of rehash, such as Bob Woodward’s anecdote about Dubya consulting only a “higher father” before invading Iraq, and dribble from new interviewees, that criticism of the elder Bush’s son “wears on his heart and soul,” we get the equivalent of what editors used to call a “thumbsucker,” a rumination devoid of news.

That used to be the province of columnists and commentators but now is disguised as reporting--and tenuous reporting at that. The Hillary-Barack scoop had to be followed by a correction of one of its few anecdotes: that “after the State of the Union address, Mrs. Clinton took a circuitous route past Mr. Obama not to avoid him, but to accommodate a television producer.”

As the old “Front Page” crowd used to say, this stuff is dynamite.