Cantor's "I know you are but what am I?" speech

Billmon at Daily Kos sees the pasty white fingerprints of Rove:

What makes this particular example so cunning are the specific words used. Liberals complain that conservative protestors have worn guns to teabagger rallies, or waved signs warning that if "Brown can’t stop this, a Browning can"? Well, now the Democrats also have been accused of using "weapons." Has the RNC stepped over the line by showing Nancy Pelosi burning in a sea of fire? Well, the Democrats are also "fanning the flames." Did the GOP House members encourage their followers to think of themselves as a revolutionary army by waving "Don’t Tread on Me" flags from the House balcony during the HCR vote? Well, the Democrats are also "ratcheting up the rhetoric."

This is pretty sophisticated stuff -- way beyond what I would expect from your typical hack GOP congressman. Which does make me wonder who’s writing Cantor’s stuff these days (Step on out from behind the curtain, Karl: We can see you.)

The basic objective of all this, as I wrote way back when, is very simple:

The goal is to confront the public with two sides hurling identical charges at each other -- the better to convince them that it's just another partisan mudfight and who the hell knows . . . anyway.

In that sense, the "mirror image" technique is a like a bomber scattering chaff behind it to try to fool enemy radar or deflect a heat-seeking missile from the real target. As I said, it’s one of the tricks Rove would use when Team Bush lost the news cycle, which suggests the past few days of coverage of the Great Teabagger Freakout have done some real damage –- or at least, that the Rovian high command thinks it has done some damage.

They did this throughout the Bush campaigns, the Bush terms of terror and we all sat around and pulled our hair out in frustration because the media ate it up.

Times are changing. Can we get the media to change too?

h/t to Dusty Crickets in comments who finds the best quotes!

Update: The Huffington Post says it all:

Republicans Condemn Violence, Threatened Democrat Not Satisfied

Don't you DARE use this against us in the elections, y'hear?! WE'RE the party of guns and thugs! Democrats and liberals are by their very nature weak and afraid!