FOR all you conspiracy theorists out there, I’ve got a hot new one for you: Based on the available evidence offered over the past few days, it appears key Democrats on Capitol Hill are secretly in the employ of the president and his political adviser, Karl Rove.
What’s more, these double agents are using some useful idiots in the media to advance their nefarious effort to discredit the Democratic Party and hand the 2004 election over to George W. Bush without a fight.
It’s the only possible explanation. How else can you decipher the suicidal decision of several important Democrats to make a stink about Bush’s speech on board USS Abraham Lincoln last week?
Do Democrats really believe they can convince Americans that there was something offensive, outrageous or obscene about the speech, the day, the event?
It just can’t be.
Nobody could be that stupid.
Nobody with half a brain in his head could believe the American people would accept the contention that the commander in chief of the Armed Forces has no right to fly a plane onto an aircraft carrier, wear a flight jacket while doing so, and then deliver a speech to 5,000 cheering sailors.
Nobody could be driven so crazy by partisan hatred.
OK, let’s say Democrats could, in fact, be blinded by partisan hatred.
I know it’s hard to imagine, but go with it for a moment. Can it be possible that Democrats want to keep reminding Americans of that amazing and powerful moment last week – a moment that showed Bush at his most presidential and the U.S. military at its most heroic?
But the more they talk about it, the more people get to see it.
Whenever a TV newscast brings the story up, the events of May 1 are shown all over again: Bush landing on the carrier, stepping out of the Viking cockpit in a becoming flight-jacket, being swarmed by excited sailors and speaking to the country about the end of the war.
It’s madness for anyone who wishes to see Bush defeated to arrange for such footage to be rebroadcast incessantly.
Which is why you have to figure that the people raising the issue are secretly working for Karl Rove to make Bush’s re-election all the easier.
Those people, primarily, are Sen. Robert Byrd and Rep. Henry Waxman. By talking about a triumph as though it were a scandal, they are only reminding people of the triumph.
What a brilliant strategy – brilliant for Rove, Dubya and the Republicans, that is.
What’s even more brilliant are the double agents Rove activated for this gambit.
First, let us examine Double Agent Robert Byrd. Byrd went to the well of the Senate to denounce the president’s “showmanship” and the lack of “dignity” he showed. And he said the president had no business wearing a flight jacket: “I do question the motives of a deskbound president who assumes the garb of a warrior for the purposes of a speech.”
On Wednesday night, in response to this remark, Jay Leno pointed out the kind of garb Byrd has worn in his life: The uniform of the Ku Klux Klan. Byrd, you see, was once a Kleagle of the Klan.
By getting Byrd to attack Bush, Rove succeeded in two ways. First, he got the footage of the president’s speech shown again. Second, he reminded people that the senior Democrat in the U.S. Senate was a member of the Klan.
Give that Karl Rove a cigar!
Next, Double Agent Rep. Henry Waxman, who stated flatly that “this was a deliberate and intentional use of the military for campaign purposes. Of course, the president should greet the troops. The question is misusing the Navy and Air Force and taxpayer dollars to kick off a re-election campaign.”
Waxman was another brilliant Rove choice. A humorless and raging partisan, Waxman may be perhaps the single most unpleasant and unappealing public official in Washington.
Contrast Waxman’s hysterically moralizing tone with the modesty of the president’s off-the-cuff answer to a question about the Lincoln trip on Wednesday:
“It was an honor for me to go on the USS Abraham Lincoln,” Bush said. “It was an unbelievably positive experience. And not only was I able to thank our troops, I was able to speak to the country and talk about not only their courage, but the courage of a lot of other men and women who wear our country’s uniform. I’m glad I did it.”
Do you hear a banging in the background? That’s the sound of John Kerry, Joe Lieberman and Dick Gephardt – the three serious Democratic candidates for president – smashing their heads against the wall in frustration and confusion.
“Why? WHY?” they’re screaming at their televisions as they catch sight of Byrd and Waxman. “Just shut up! We have to move on! We . . . have . . . to . . . get . . . past . . . this!”
If the Democrats keep on like this, they’ll never get past this. And the only people who will benefit will be George W. Bush and his administration.
Oh – and the American people, too.
E-mail: podhoretz@nypost.com