Karl Rove is drowning this week, and not in indictments, despite many predictions to the contrary.

The drowning, though, is more akin to a Harry Houdini-style trick than the demise of the Nixon Administration. Despite indictments being delivered a week ago, the resignation of a high-level official, an ongoing investigation involving a man who is considered by many to be the architect o the Bush Administration, and Bush's approval ratings hitting historic lows, if you turn on the television this week, you'll be treated to conjectures about Alito and pictures of chickens (not that I don't take avian flu seriously, but c'mon, CNN - either give truly in-depth coverage or get a new graphic).

Jacob Weisberg, in yesterday's Slate, wrote a really intriguing article entitled "Karl Rove's Dying Dream: So Much for the Permanent Republican Majority". What he criticized, however, is buried by a media fascinated by the limelight (oh, wait, excuse me, a media offering hard-hitting journalism).

Weisberg discussed the failures of the Bush administration in catering to the middle. In an article riddled with McKinley analogies (which fit), he points out the strategic problems with catering only to your base.

Conservatives of all kinds are in a militant mood heightened by their success in muscling Bush on Miers. They do not realize how their militancy alienates not just the left, but the swingers in the center whom Republicans need to win.

Rove is actually the second Republican realigner to stumble in this way in recent years. After the 1994 election, Newt Gingrich had his own visions of political sugarplums. Gingrich's unsuccessful revolution was more libertarian and less moralistic. He thought the new Republican majority would coalesce around shrinking government (a theme Bush has soft-pedaled, preferring to undermine government through neglect and incompetence). Gingrich was also, frankly, a little nuts. But he failed because he made the same basic mistake that Rove did. Gingrich thought he'd won a mandate for radical change and enshrined a new governing majority. He forgot about the country's nonideological majority, which likes Medicare, Social Security, national parks, and student loans.

Is this the end of the road for conservatives, or have progressives made the same mistakes? One of the most interesting things about the Left is that it's an ideological amalgam. Many (myself included), fault the Left for running to the center. Should we? It's certainly better on a philosophical level to continue our ideological diversity, but is it practical? Should we be trying the "center-out" approach that Weisberg mentions?

No.

The progressive movement isn't party-specific. It's a movement centered entirely on a world-view, on an ideology. Moving to the middle kills the movement, it's as simple as that. We need to work to sell our ideas, not to sell out. We need to show people why our ideas are important to them, and we need to mobilize the "disaffected youth" of our generation.

We may not have a man behind the curtain, but that doesn't prevent us from pulling some Houdini-style tricks of our own (just, please, not this one).