I am beginning to see why Karl Rove was pulling for Howard Dean....

I refer to Ted Rall's endorsement, of course.

Rall strikes an eerily conciliatory tone right now, even appearing to countenance (gulp) centrism:

Brilliant, aggressive and moneyed (that's Dean Witter to you, pal), Dr. Dean has a corner on the single most important issue to Americans: health care. His politics are surprisingly centrist, in both the refreshing sense (he's pro-Second Amendment and he came out for class-, rather than race-based affirmative action) and in the disappointing, Clintonian sense (he opposed invading Iraq, but not Afghanistan). He's got traditional Democratic constituents (he just stole the biggest AFL-CIO union's endorsement away from Gephardt) and fresh new ones (twentysomething bloggers have mailed him $25 million in crisp twenties).

Rall knows whereof he speaks, and Rove's dirty tricksters know no bounds! Already, they are circulating Rall's own cartoon ridiculing 9/11 widows. Brutal tactics indeed!

For Rove, it must be like shooting fish in a barrel.