Niccolo Jr. pretends to leave

Oh deary me. Our own would-be prince maker has resigned and is leaving the White House at the end of August.

There was even a touching little bit with Georgie and the pipsqueak Machiavelli on the lawn, with glycerin tears in plain view.

I watched a couple of CNN pretty-faces read their teleprompter ad-libs about how there just might be a few late night calls, off the record, because the prince has depended so on his “boy genius” for so long he's not going to lose that support now.

It was enough, as my old man used to say, to gag a maggot.

After that and a similar smirk fest at one of the other faux news outfits, I swore off further commentary or “reportage,” at least unless and until Paul Krugman weighs in on the subject.

Just in case any real people are in doubt: Rove isn't going away. He isn't even slowing down. He is being repositioned in order to better lead the Lies, Dirty Tricks and Nasty Tactics Brigade for the 2008 campaign to permanently embed Neocon rule.

Out of the White House – officially, that is – he doesn't have to bother swatting away the timid little congressional Democrats, who occasionally make a pretense of demanding an accounting of and by Rove for his various illegal activities.

Having long ago used the U.S. Constitution for toilet paper – handed over a sheet at a time by Congress every time someone in the White House squats -- the regime insiders aren't seriously threatened by the Democrats, but they still need, for purely propaganda reasons, to pretend there is another branch or two of government, and making the Dems crawl can be time consuming, as well as boring.

Out of the White House, Karl can operate with complete freedom and privacy, with no one able to claim a legal right to oversight. His actions can and will be wholly protected from public view.

Unless some party functionary with access gets a sudden attack of conscience or is stricken with an attack of honesty – extremely unlikely events -- the sociopaths and their leader will operate untroubled by law, conscience or public opinion.

The only “news,” and it's barely more air-worthy or print-worthy than a rush hour fender bender at this point, is that the captive news outfits are opening their raincoats to again display their inadequacies for all to see.