The White House is being way too quiet today, and the silence is eerie.

Sure, Bush is on the road talking about "competitiveness." But he might as well be talking about Mah Jong for all anyone cares.

Bad things happen when Bush is babbling about things he cares nothing about - sometimes very bad things.

Remember 9/11? That morning, Bush was babbling about education in a Florida classroom, as if Mr. "Is Our Children Learning?" gave a crap. He learned about the first plane crashing into the WTC at 8:46 a.m. - he twice said he saw it live, which of course no one else did - yet at 9:00 a.m. he walked right into the classroom as scheduled. And right after the second plane hit at 9:05 a.m. - which everyone except Bush saw live on TV - Andy Card whispered in Bush's ear that "America is under attack." Yet Bush didn't flinch; he just kept reading "My Pet Goat" with the kids for another 10-20 minutes. He then gave a horrible TV statement and flew as far from Washington as he could. But a few days later, Karl Rove put him before the cameras with rescue workers on Ground Zero, put a bullhorn in his hand, and instantly transformed him from a clueless coward to a "hero."

A few days ago, a reader sent an email entitled "Detroit the next target?" and made some excellent points:

Here is an article from WND [WorldNetDaily.com, a right-wing site] that points out the problems with Detroit Super Bowl security and the use of the Feds.

It's interesting that this year the NFL changed the company that has handled security for the Super Bowl.  Odd thing to do at a time when there are concerns about attacks.  Why get rid of a highly experienced company?

As the WND points out there are 400,000 muslims in Detroit.  Wouldn't that make Detroit a good place to increase fear and hysteria? 

We need something big to justify attacking Iran. What bigger (to us) than Super Bowl weekend?

SUPER BOWL XL
Feds secure NFL profits instead of football fans?
U.S. agents to focus on confiscating counterfeit merchandise at big game

http://wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=48620

While Sunday's Super Bowl in Detroit will be the largest security operation for any event in history, some Homeland Security and U.S. Customs officers are being diverted from protecting the spectacle from terrorists to busting individuals suspected of selling counterfeit NFL memorabilia.

At last year's game in Jacksonville, Fla., agents seized some 21,000 pieces of counterfeit NFL merchandise worth $5 million...

But some terrorism experts are wondering how and why the Department of Homeland Security could possibly be involved in confiscating T-shirts when the nation – and especially high-profile events like the Super Bowl – remain potential targets of terrorism.

Some security experts point out that Detroit is the U.S. city with the highest population of Muslims – some 400,000 total. Included within that community is a small minority of radicalized supporters of al-Qaida and other terrorist organizations. The proximity of the city to the Canadian border has also raised concerns.

Some international terror analysts and intelligence sources told Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin [note: paid subscription only] this week they see a high likelihood of a major terrorist attack next Sunday.

The warning is made on the basis of several factors:

• There is increased "chatter" in the terrorist world about a major new attack in the West – a sign often leading to an impending strike;
• The date Feb. 5 has been specifically referenced in some of this chatter;
• The date is significant to Osama bin Laden;
• Much of the Western world will be watching television that day.

Certainly Super Bowl security is high:

Super Bowl; Super Security

Cast of 10,000 will serve, protect during big week

David Shepardson / The Detroit News

DETROIT -- Sunday is D-Day.

The FBI and Detroit Police will open one of the largest security operations in U.S. history, guarding against any threats to Super Bowl XL and aided by more than 50 federal, state and local law enforcement agencies.

Including private security guards, there will be upward of 10,000 security personnel on duty in Detroit for the Super Bowl, rivaling the security for any other one-day event in U.S. history and on a scale with a presidential inauguration, the FBI says, capping 18 months of intensive preparations. It would be a larger force than any previous Super Bowl.

But security preparations for this Super Bowl are getting a lot less media coverage than the last 3 did.

Which leads me to ask: is Karl Rove planning a terrorist attack during the Super Bowl, in order to set the stage for building towards war with Iran over the coming year?

Remember, Rove has played the "war card" before. The Iraq War buildup in 2002 was all about politics. Veteran Texas journalist - and Rove expert - Jim Moore exposed the whole plan in "Bush's War for Reelection." Moore must have struck a nerve in the White House, because he's now on Homeland Security's no-fly list.

Investigative reporter Russ Baker also found evidence that Bush planned the Iraq War for political reasons as early as 1999, according to Bush's first biographer, Mickey Herskowitz. "He was thinking about invading Iraq in 1999. It was on his mind. He said, 'One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief.' And he said, 'My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it.' He went on, 'If I have a chance to invade…, if I had that much capital, I'm not going to waste it. I'm going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I'm going to have a successful presidency.'"

Right after 9/11, Bush and Rove saw their opportunity to invade Iraq, as Richard Clarke famously reported in his book. Immediately after they overthrew the Taliban in Afghanistan - but even as Osama Bin Laden remained free - Bush ordered Gen. Richard Myers to begin planning an invasion of Iraq, much to Myers' disgust.

The justifications for Bush's insane War with Iraq had to be created out of whole cloth. Iraq posed no threat whatsoever to the United States - both Colin Powell and Condi Rice said so before 9/11. Cheney got reports that Iraq was trying to acquire uranium from Niger, so the CIA sent Joe Wilson to investigate and he (and two other investigators) told the CIA the report was baseless. Of course, Bush and Cheney knew that all of Iraq's WMD's had been destroyed before 1995, when Saddam's son-in-law Hussein Kamel defected and told us.

But that didn't stop Bush, as the Downing Street Memos make clear; on July 23, the head of MI6 returned from a meeting with CIA director George Tenet and famously reported: "Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

Bush desperately tried to get Saddam to attack U.S. forces to justify an invasion. In the spring of 2002, Bush sent U.S. warplanes patrolling Iraq's northern and southern "no-fly" zones into the center of Iraq to provoke anti-aircraft fire, and Bush significantly increased bombing runs. In the fall, Bush demanded (and got) a U.N. resolution requiring strict inspections inside Iraq, hoping to "wrong-foot" Saddam into refusing - but Saddam complied in full. This drove Bush practically insane; in January 2003, according to a brand new White House memo revealed on British TV that has barely been reported in the U.S., Bush told Blair "The US was thinking of flying U2 reconnaissance aircraft with fighter cover over Iraq, painted in UN colours. If Saddam fired on them, he would be in breach."

But even if Bush couldn't provoke an Iraqi attack, Bush still had to have his "war for reelection." So in the summer of 2002, the White House Iraq Group planned its public relations campaign to sell its war of lies. First, Rove and Libby planted lies about Iraqi WMD's (the infamous aluminum tubes) with Judy Miller in the New York Times, and Cheney went on Meet the Press to hype Miller's leaked lies. Then Rove sent Bush to the U.N. to beat the war drums on September 12, 2002, just a year and a day after the 9/11 attack. And Rove forced Congress to vote on a war resolution in early October, thus defining the political landscape at the height of the Congressional campaign. Rove's TV ads attacked Democrats like Max Cleland as weak on national security, Republicans gained seats in Congress, Bush invaded Iraq, and Bush rode his "commander-in-chief" horse through another stolen election in 2004.

But now the political tides have shifted, and both Bush and the Republican Party are in grave danger as the 2006 campaign begins. Bush's approval rating is stuck at 40% (39% in the latest NBC/WSJ poll), despite two months of high-profile speeches. And the approval rating for House Republicans is barely half of that, thanks to bottomless scandals involving Tom DeLay, Jack Abramoff, Duke Cunningham, etc.

If this pattern continues until November, everyone agrees Republicans will be swept out of Congress and Democrats could take control of one or both chambers.

Within the realm of "normal" politics, there is nothing Rove can do to reverse the tide. Bush's State of the Union was a dud, and he offered no important programs to set the political agenda in the coming months. And all of the daily headlines are bad for Bush.

Scooter Libby's trial is under way, and crucial emails have been scrubbed - echoes of Nixon's infamous 18 1/2 minute gap.

Bush's domestic wiretapping scandal is before the Senate, and top administration officials are once again lying through their teeth (listen to Randi Rhodes for the gory details). If they keep lying, Senate Democrats and Republicans may finally start screaming - and demanding the truth.

Economic news is gloomy, with massive layoffs at GM and Ford. The Dow is stuck under 11,000, just as it has since Bush stole the White House. Housing sales are turning south, which could trigger a recession or worse.

And gasoline prices continue to increase, up $.21 in the past two months. As we know, Professor Pollkatz has proved conclusively that Bush's poll ratings move in (reverse) lockstep with gas prices.

Of course, gasoline prices are driven by crude oil prices, which are approaching post-Katrina highs. Much of this is driven by fear of a confrontation with Iran, the world's 4th largest crude oil producer. And with neocons firmly in charge of White House policy, relations with Iran are likely to get worse in the coming weeks and months.

If we were operating in the world of "normal" politics, Karl Rove would want to quiet the confrontation with Iran, in order to push world crude oil prices down. But he appears to be doing the opposite, pushing the IAEA to refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council while filling the TV airwaves with former Generals demanding war - the exact same playbook Rove used to sell the Iraq War in the fall of 2002.

So does Rove want war with Iran to produce a Republican victory in November? Rove's January 22 speech to the Republican National Committee put terrorism front and center once again:

Rove Lays Out Road Map for Republicans in Fall Elections

By ADAM NAGOURNEY

Karl Rove, the president's chief political adviser, gave nervous Republicans here a preview on Friday of the party's strategy to maintain its dominance in the fall elections, offering a searing attack on Democrats for their positions on terrorism, the administration's eavesdropping program and President Bush's effort to shape the federal judiciary.

If Rove wants a war with Iran, he will have to manufacture it, because Iran (like Iraq in 2002) is not trying to provoke a war.

And how better to manufacture a war than to manufacture a terrorist attack on the Super Bowl right while the whole world is watching - and blame it on Iran?

Of course, Rove will have to be very creative this time, beyond even painting a U.S. plane in the colors of the U.N. (Perhaps a "Canadian" submarine will float up the Detroit River? Watch it live!) The FBI is prepared for just about anything - Special Agent William Kowalski says "there are no credible threats against the Super Bowl" - and does not want to be humiliated yet again. Rove's plan would have to be so evil as to justify yet one more farcical White House claim that "no one could possibly have imagined" such a horrendous thing.

I pray that I am wrong. But ever since Karl Rove plucked Bush out of his drunken stupor to groom him for a career delivering speeches fed to him through an earpiece, just about everything I feared has come true.