Dear Soul of Karl Rove:

You are a great conceptual thinker, and I am concerned about the collective memory of our nation. Concerned, that is, that your invented scenarios are destructively meddling with our memories, and leading to the demise of this great nation. Now that you have entered a maze of your own design (a difficult conundrum, even for a man of great creative genius) I’m wondering if perhaps you can begin to help, rather than hinder, the soul of America.

For example, I remember that there were really no terrorists in Iraq before this war started. But reading the papers, it would seem that the terrorists have been there all along, and we went in to “get” them. I had this discussion with my neighbor, and he looked at me like I was insane when I told him that the insurgency in Iraq was born and gathered steam only after the invasion. You really got into his head! He doesn't even remember the uranium tubes! He only remembers that Iraq was directly involved in 9/11.

As with this example, your entire strategy is based on the assumption that things happen, and then we forget. I remember when 9/11 felt like something that could not be co-opted, could not be mass-marketed as a product, could not be manipulated; could not, in other words, be forgotten. I thought that 9/11 was a public memory that would lead us to collectively imagine a saner future.

But apparently, you have reconfigured this memory just because you have decided that there are other narratives, more conducive to national interests. I don’t doubt that there are, and always have been, crazy terrorists. But now they have increased 100-fold. Is it part of your design? This evil?

Oh Karl Rove who outed a CIA agent in order to perpetuate a fiction. Save the nation at the same time that you are saving yourself. This is a thought experiment. A challenge that surely you will be eager to face.

Sincerely,

Citizen Kay