50 Ways To Keep Your Cover
By Norman L Bender
[From the lyrics and tune of Paul Simon’s “50 Ways To Leave Your Lover”
The problem is all inside your head, she said to me,
The answer is easy if you take it logically,
I’d like to help you in your struggle to be free,
There must be 50 ways to leave your lover.
She said, it’s really not my habit to intrude
Furthermore, I hope my meaning won’t be misconstrued,
But I’ll repeat myself at the risk of being rude,
There must be fifty ways to leave your lover,
Fifty ways to leave your lover.]
From the Diary of Karl Rove 2005
“I’ve seen tension in Dub. No WMDs, no terrorists (well when we started) in Iraq, Social Security is
stalling, me and Joseph Wilson and Valerie always in the news, and they say our tax cuts have caused the
worst budget deficit in history. He needs a pep talk, we got to give him cover and stay on message.”
As Karl dozes, he remembers thinking: cover the boss’ back, and hears again the name of Paul Simon.
Hey, he’s dead; he can’t run for the Senate, that’s how Ashcroft lost. He stands and sings before the
president:
The problems are inside the liberals head I’ll make you see,
The answer is so easy if we take it logically,
The whole point of this strategy is we must be blame free,
There must be fifty ways to keep our cover.
I know you hate reporters that peskily intrude,
You always stay on message so you won’t be misconstrued,
You certainly repeat yourself so if they question, they are rude,
There must be fifty ways to keep our cover
Pick some folks to attack, Jack,
Get a privatized plan, Stan,
Make it fir or agin, Ken,
Just keep us blame free.
Cut the richest folk’s tax, Dax,
Use the color code red, Ned,
Seek new funds for Iraq, Zack,
Just keep us blame free.
Oh Dub, it grieves me so to see you in such pain,
Wish there were new threats we could utilize for gain,
I know you’d ditto that so I’ll again explain,
About the fifty ways.
Resist the stem cell, Dell,
Force all people to pray, Ray
Coerce all to agree, Lee
Just keep us blame free.
Make dissenters conform, Norm,
Don’t give them their say, Jay
Keep reporters in jail, Hale
And keep us blame free.
The Diary: Fall 2006
Our cover’s blown. The opposition may actually gain in the election. It’s the press’ fault, of course, with
all those anti-administration facts on WMDs, that liberator thing (well, we were greeted, just not that
way), and 9/11 (NOT) due to Saddam, but I still love saying it – 9/11, 9/11, 9/11 – it still can work – we
keep calling them cut and runners; (they won’t be clever enough to call us slog and bleeders) and fear,
more fear, fear. The only governing is getting elected so we must accentuate the negative because that
is our positive: and to any of our candidates who don’t agree – no RNC bucks.
Karl again dreams:
Swift boat Democrats vets, Chet,
That works well we’ve all seen,
Demand negative ads, Thad,
Or we’ll send them no green,
Cause they need RNC bucks, Chuck,
To control TV screens.
Bait the cut and run Dems, Clem
And we’ll be home free,
Give them all a good fright, Dwight,
Cause we got to divide, Clyde.
And we’ll get 50 states to run for cover.
Absorb the plan of attack, Zack
Emphasize Bush is at war, Thor,
And surely they’ll see,
Deny state of denial, Lyle,
And keep us blame free.
Get the racist ad on, Ron,
When you’re in a close race, Chase,
But say you didn’t know, Joe,
And keep us blame free.
But…they still might win the day, Clay,
So plan what records to shred, Fred,
And that’s just one more time we’ll keep our cover.
