I very seldom read the Financial Times, but I snapped up the March 22, 2007, issue when I saw the front page photo of Karl Rove under the caption “Rove Subpoena.”

Shades of Watergate! Maybe justice is about to strike at the White House. I wanted this souvenir. The photo shows Rove stepping down an airplane gangplank, smiling, his hair tousled by the wind, and carrying a book, the title plainly visible: “Khrushchev’s Cold War: The Inside Story of an American Adversary.” Wow! Why isn’t right-wing radio drooling over this? The president’s “senior political adviser” is a Commie! Who else would read such a book? That’s the rant that we would have heard if the photo had shown Ted Kennedy instead of Rove. And wouldn’t it make a great excuse for the remaining fruitcakes who want to believe Bush can’t make a mistake? The right wing could finally admit things are screwed up, because of the Commie who wormed his way into Bush’s inner circle!

When my son saw the photo, he suggested a video script for YouTube: Rove is banging his shoe on the witness table in front of a Congressional committee, as he refuses to testify under oath. A remake of the famous Khrushchev maneuver at the UN. I’d love to see it.

Judging from the reviews posted on Amazon, the book looks pretty good: “a fascinating picture of the inner dynamics of the Soviet state and its leadership during the Khrushchev era that far surpasses anything U.S. intelligence could manage at the time.” Maybe Rove is attracted by the similarities between the two regimes: Khrushchev “tended toward recklessness” and had to be restrained by his inner circle “from plunging the superpowers into war.” Bush’s inner circle aggravated instead, and we have the unhappy result.