DebateGate
General Category => 3DHS => Topic started by: _JS on August 14, 2007, 10:22:16 AM
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Not the legacy he had in mind
Michael Tomasky
August 13, 2007 1:45 PM
Link (http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/michael_tomasky/2007/08/not_the_legacy_he_had_in_mind.html)
Karl Rove's legacy? I have my own ideas about it, but let's start by asserting that his place in the history books will not be quite the one he envisioned for himself.
During the 2000 campaign, Rove was fond of saying that he thought of George Bush as today's William McKinley, the Republican who won the 1896 presidential election handily over the Democrat William Jennings Bryan. McKinley's victory ushered in an era of GOP dominance that lasted the better part of 35 years, until Franklin Roosevelt came along. Rove predicted that Bush's victory would do the same. The brains behind this paradigm shift, it went without saying, was Rove himself, who would be credited as the genius who kick-started a new era in which America embraced conservatism and fully and finally rejected anything having to do with the Democratic party.
Well, now. That's going well for him, isn't it?
Instead, Rove leaves two other legacies. They are incompetence and duplicity. It's hard to know which is worse. Actually, no it isn't. The duplicity has been worse, but let's emphasise here his incompetence, because it is operatic. As has so often been the case in America these last seven years, the facts are completely at odds with the cultivated image.
Let's remember first of all: Rove, and Bush, did not win the 2000 presidential election. Al Gore won the popular vote. Gore ran a mostly pretty bad campaign on the basis of mostly pretty bad advice. And still he won, by 500,000 votes. Were it not for a poorly designed ballot in one county in Florida - not whining; just pointing it out - that enticed many elderly Jews into voting for Pat Buchanan, Bush's defeat would have been clear. He and Rove would have been sent home and forgotten.
So Bush won the election in the supreme court. Well, that's the way it goes. We had to accept the court's verdict as a country and go forward. But the fact remains that Bush won that election by five votes, the five supreme court votes that installed him in the White House. Nothing Karl Rove did got him those votes.
So Rove engineered only one successful presidential election. By a bare 3 million votes (or just 70,000 votes in Ohio, if you care to count it that way). Against a mediocre candidate who ran another bad campaign. For an incumbent president during wartime. Not really a feat for the ages, but okay, a win is a win.
So what did Rove do with that win? He pushed his president to stake his "political capital," as Bush famously said during a post-election press conference, on dismantling social security. And yes, Rove really pushed it.
It was an unpopular idea from the start. It never polled well, and it made congressional Republicans very nervous. The White House never even produced a piece of actual legislation, but Bush spent the first six months of his new term travelling the country and giving speeches praising the marvels of private accounts.
The polls didn't budge. By late April, early May, it was obvious that this scheme was going nowhere. But no - Karl was just certain things were going to change any minute now! After all, it was written on the tablets of history! Bush was McKinley! The realignment was coming!
Then came Katrina. Rove's specific role in this debacle remains a bit of a mystery, but let's put it this way: His McKinley was out in Arizona giving speeches, yukking it up with hand-picked audiences of senior citizens, cutting a birthday cake with John McCain and blithely strumming a guitar with a country-and-western singer, while American citizens were dying in New Orleans. Rove, one had been led to believe, was a genius at "optics", at showing the president to be firmly in charge. Nice work!
But soon enough it was time think about another election. Here, surely, Rove would shine; this was his metier. Circumstances had changed a bit. The Iraq war wasn't going so well. But Rove knew what would work. Stick to the script: equate a Democratic victory with a win for the terrorists. Works every time. But those annoying voters forgot that they were supposed to be acting according to Rove's predetermined script.
In sum, he often gave his president terrible advice. And though Iraq is the main reason for Bush's collapse and was more directly the project of Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld and others, Rove certainly did his share to ensure that Bush will leave Washington as one of the least successful presidents in history.
On the duplicity front, the evidence is voluminous. It goes back to his days in the College Republicans, when he was running for national chairman of that organisation and at the same time conducting training seminars instructing campaign workers in techniques such as rooting through opponents' trash cans. This against his fellow Republicans.
But don't take it from me. Here's Rove himself, in memos to a Republican gubernatorial candidate in Texas who preceded Bush named Bill Clements: "The whole art of war consists in a well-reasoned and extremely circumspect defensive, followed by rapid and audacious attack." And: "Anti-White [Clements' opponent] messages are more important than positive Clements messages. Attack. Attack. Attack."
Thus the whispering campaigns that always seemed to spring up. That Ann Richards, Bush's gubernatorial opponent in Texas, was a lesbian. That John McCain had fathered a black child out of wedlock. And the worst - that a Democratic state supreme court judge in Alabama who worked with troubled youths was a paedophile.
And finally, the attacks on the patriotism of those who opposed Bush's post-9/11 initiatives. Including war heroes, like former Georgia Democratic senator Max Cleland, who left three limbs in Vietnam. Rove, of draft age during the war, managed not to go. Yes, politics is a rough sport, and yes, Democrats do skeezy things too. But Rove is part of a generation of Republican consultants, along with the late Lee Atwater, that plumbed new depths.
The end result? His president is at 31% and will go down in history as a failure. The country is in worse shape, majorities of Americans believe, than it's been in quite a while. The Middle East is a powder keg. Terrorism is on the rise.
There is, though, a silver lining: Rove may have indeed played a part in bringing about a political realignment. It just won't be the one he had in mind.
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(http://images.ucomics.com/comics/tt/2007/tt070814.gif)
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Analysis: Karl Rove's Timing Is Perfect
Ronald Kessler
Monday, Aug. 13, 2007
Karl Rove's decision to leave the White House at the end of the month makes perfect sense.
Besides getting a huge advance in a book deal, Rove will be contributing to President Bush's legacy by writing a book that will be more widely read if it comes out when Bush is still president.
As part of shaping Bush's legacy, he is going to be one of the key planners of the Bush library, where he will have a prominent position. Rove is a brilliant student of American history, surpassing the most erudite history professors. He will relish comparing Bush with other presidents.
Rove will still be available whenever the president needs his advice. In the meantime, Ed Gillespie, as counselor to the president, has begun to provide political advice that Karl otherwise might give.
At Gillespie's urging, Bush has responded more aggressively to attacks by the Democrats on his war policies and has taken them on over excessive spending. Pushed by Gillespie, Bush has made more public appearances. The fact that Bush flew to the site of the bridge collapse in Minneapolis shows he has learned since Hurricane Katrina that for political reasons, a president must make such appearances.
In an interview with Paul Gigot, who broke the story of Rove's resignation in the Wall Street Journal, Rove denied that his departure now is intended to avoid congressional scrutiny.
"I know they'll say that," Rove said. "But I'm not going to stay or leave based on whether it pleases the mob."
As a political strategist, Rove's job was to advise Bush what programs, policies, and campaign promises would sell well. Rove was critical to fashioning Bush's two election victories.
When Collister "Coddy" Johnson first began working for the Bush campaign in 1999, he had the task of drafting a letter from Bush to Iowa farmers. Johnson was in Rove's office on the first floor of campaign headquarters in Austin when Rove read his draft. Rove wrote a few notes on the letter and handed it back to Johnson. At the top, Rove had written, "Purpose?"
"What do you mean by ?purpose,' sir?" Johnson asked. "If you mean the thesis, I think it's right there, in the last line of the first graph ? the thesis, I mean."
"The thesis, eh?" Rove replied. "Well, if that's your Ivy-league language," he said to the Yale graduate, "let's talk about theses, antitheses, and syntheses," using philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's formulations. "Where is the tension in the letter? How do you drive the purpose, its synthesis, from that tension? I don't see it, and I don't think the second and third graphs carry it."
Johnson, who became national field director of the 2004 campaign, walked back to his desk, recognizing that the letter was dull and somewhat amazed that Hegel had just been quoted in a campaign office. In the White House, Rove participated in every significant decision with the exception of issues involving the war and national security. "Karl will participate in many types of decisions by giving strategic and political advice," Alberto Gonzales told me when he was White House counsel.
"For example, Karl may tell the president this is what we believe will be the public reaction in certain parts of the country to a particular decision. However, the decision to go to war was not driven by Karl's political advice."
The press dubbed Rove "Bush's Brain," suggesting that Bush had none. "Karl Rove thinks it, and George W. Bush does it," James Moore and Wayne Slater said flatly in their book "Bush's Brain." But it was Bush who decided how to meld Rove's political advice with his own principles and advice from policy aides about the content of programs.
While they are friends, it was always clear who was boss. Occasionally, Bush would bring Karl up short. Seeing reporters gathered around Rove on the presidential campaign plane, Bush said sarcastically, "Is the Karl Rove press conference over yet?" But when Bush discussed ideas with other aides, he would ask, "What does Karl think?"
While the media delight in deriding Bush's brain, it was that same brain that recognized Rove as perhaps the greatest political tactician in American history. Now Rove has taken his own tactical advice on when to leave. His timing, as usual, is perfect.
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cheap talk vs. results
(http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/02/images/20060201-4_p020106sc-0214-384h.jpg)
Swearing-in ceremony for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito
(http://www.whitehouse.gov/president/gallery/photoessay/roberts/images/p092905ed-0345-398h.jpg)
Judge John G. Roberts is sworn-in as the 17th Chief Justice of the United States
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let's talk about theses, antitheses, and syntheses," using philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's formulations
I'm beginning to see why Bush has been such a disaster.
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Can't wait for another 15years to pass before we have a grasp of what his real legacy will be, vs the pundits with their knee jerk reactions of how bad he's supposed to be. IIRC Regan was supposed to be a "disaster" at the end of his term. So much for knee jerk punditry on that one
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Can't wait for another 15years to pass before we have a grasp of what his real legacy will be, vs the pundits with their knee jerk reactions of how bad he's supposed to be. IIRC Regan was supposed to be a "disaster" at the end of his term. So much for knee jerk punditry on that one
Reagan was sort of the demonic John the Baptist to the devil Bush which brought the disaster to fruition.
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Can't wait for another 15years to pass before we have a grasp of what his real legacy will be
Truly one of the greats (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYZre8kEsuw) has left the building. He oversaw the return of a quiet solemn dignity to the White House. I tip my hat to Karl Rove, who towered above other, well..."tower" is a strong word. A man whose dancing skills are what we expect from a little, fat, bald, Republican who recorded in his autobiography that one of the defining moments of his youth was getting routinely beat up by a Catholic schoolgirl who supported John Kennedy for President.
Dance and rap on MC Rove. Dance and rap on...
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Can't wait for another 15years to pass before we have a grasp of what his real legacy will be
Truly one of the greats (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYZre8kEsuw) has left the building. He oversaw the return of a quiet solemn dignity to the White House. I tip my hat to Karl Rove, who towered above other, well..."tower" is a strong word. A man whose dancing skills are what we expect from a little, fat, bald, Republican who recorded in his autobiography that one of the defining moments of his youth was getting routinely beat up by a Catholic schoolgirl who supported John Kennedy for President.
Dance and rap on MC Rove. Dance and rap on...
He looks exactly like the organ grinder monkey that he is.
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And let the knee jerk punditry sing on 8)
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>> ... And let the knee jerk punditry sing on ... <<
Seriously, who gives a damn what the Bush-haters think of Karl Rove?
Thanks to Karl we didn't get Al or John. That alone should but him on Mount Rushmore.
Something I think we need to remember is that nothing is out of bounds when it comes to the left and how it gains power. They will do and say anything to get what they want, and when they get it, they celebrate and sanctify those who get it for them. When the other side gains power by similar means, they are evil personified.
So really, who gives a damn what the leftist/communists think of Karl Rove? Good luck and God speed Karl. Job well done.
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<<Reagan was sort of the demonic John the Baptist to the devil Bush which brought the disaster to fruition.>>
WELL SAID, Knute.
The end of a democratic America is now within sight, and Rove has done as much as anyone to bring it about. I don't think the rest will take even ten years, 15 maybe at the most. As the Professor points out, you now have the Supreme Court you need. Now it's up to the politicians to find the excuses they need to put the Court to work.
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<<Reagan was sort of the demonic John the Baptist to the devil Bush which brought the disaster to fruition.>>
>> WELL SAID, Knute. <<
Another perfect example of the blind hatred coming from the leftist/communists. None of it is even remotely based in fact. People, these are the kind of twisted human beings who put people in re-education camps and ship them off to nowhere.
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Judged by the event of which we speak, and the responses by the respective sides to it here in this thread, it may not be premature to say that the rout is on.
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<<Reagan was sort of the demonic John the Baptist to the devil Bush which brought the disaster to fruition.>>
>> WELL SAID, Knute. <<
Another perfect example of the blind hatred coming from the leftist/communists. None of it is even remotely based in fact. People, these are the kind of twisted human beings who put people in re-education camps and ship them off to nowhere.
You must admit that you deserve it, Richpoopoo. The evidence that the Bushidiot has fucked up the country and the world is everywhere around you from failed bridges to failed wars. The only ones that dont see it are the greedy pricks like you that only care about fattening their wallets and themselves.
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Judged by the event of which we speak, and the responses by the respective sides to it here in this thread, it may not be premature to say that the rout is on.
You mean complaints of how terrible and a disaster Bush is, being made by the left, 2 of which the foaming at the mouth variety, is synonymous to a rout?? Interesting deductive reasoning you've got going there, Domer :-\
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>>You must admit that you deserve it, Richpoopoo.<<
There you have it. Knutty admits it. Of course he doesn't have the brains or the brawn to actually carry it out. Can you imagine Knutty knocking on your door at 3 in the morning? :D BOO! :D
>>The evidence that the Bushidiot has fucked up the country and the world is everywhere around you from failed bridges to failed wars.<<
:D Don't forget hurricanes. :D
>>The only ones that dont see it are the greedy pricks like you that only care about fattening their wallets and themselves.<<
Knutty, if you care so much, why don't you donate what you spend on internet access to the poor? Or can't you you sign over your welfare check?
:-*
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knute: <<Reagan was sort of the demonic John the Baptist to the devil Bush which brought the disaster to fruition.>>
MT: <<WELL SAID, Knute. >>
Rich: <<Another perfect example of the blind hatred coming from the leftist/communists. >>
Well, at least you got the "hatred" part of it right. Considering the numerous crimes and atrocities of this administration, I wouldn't exactly call it "blind" hatred. "Well-earned" or "well-deserved" are the adjectives that more readily come to mind. "Blind" I would reserve for the knee-jerk crypto-fascist response to any attack on this fascist icon.
<<None of it is even remotely based in fact. >>
Right. I DREAMED that Bush started the Iraq War. In actual fact, first Iraq nuked New York City, then Saddam personally lured Laura to Baghdad and raped her in one of his rape rooms.
<<People, these are the kind of twisted human beings who put people in re-education camps and ship them off to nowhere.>>
Re-ed camp is only for people whose minds can absorb the re-education. In your case, Rich, we're gonna leave you to babble and drool on street corners to anyone willing to listen.
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>>Well, at least you got the "hatred" part of it right. Considering the numerous crimes and atrocities of this administration,<<
When will should we be expecting the indictements? :D
>>Right. I DREAMED that Bush started the Iraq War.<<
You must have because he certianly didn't. Should I do a play by play of the vote in Congress and the vote in the UN? I know, no need to, you've got the template and that's enough for you isn't it. Twit.
>>Re-ed camp is only for people whose minds can absorb the re-education.<<
I'm not worried about some limp-wristed Canadian. Besides, I'm armed. ;)
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<<When will should we be expecting the indictements?>>
What do indictments have to do with it? You must have confused the U.S.A. with a nation of laws and principles.
<<You must have [dreamed that Bush started the Iraq War] because he certianly didn't. Should I do a play by play of the vote in Congress . . . ?>>
Why bother? Why not just tell me who brought the matter up in Congress and whose administration fed them the lies that they needed to go along with the war plans?
<< . . . and the vote in the UN? >>
Uhh, there WAS no vote in the UN because the lying bastard knew they weren't gonna buy into his fucking lies. So his UN rep never proposed the matter to the Security Council as originally planned.
<<I know, no need to, you've got the template and that's enough for you isn't it.>>
Say I've got the facts and they're enough for me, yeah. But not for you, apparently.
<<Twit.>>
Schmuck.
<<I'm not worried about some limp-wristed Canadian. >>
Speaking of limp-wristed, how are your "boys" doing in Iraq lately? Funny how they can't seem to make any headway in four years, despite all that humongous advantage in firepower and equipment. Care to hazard an explanation for this humiliation?
<<Besides, I'm armed. >>
Sorry to hear you're such a 'fraidy-cat. Who or what are you afraid of? "Limp-wristed" Canadians? ;)
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>>What do indictments have to do with it? You must have confused the U.S.A. with a nation of laws and principles.<<
That's right, you're a Canadain with penis envy. You accuse the presidet, where's your proof? Where's the indictments? I know, I know, in your bizzarro world all you have to do is say something in and it's true. Fortunetly for the rest of us proof is required.
>>Why bother? Why not just tell me who brought the matter up in Congress and whose administration fed them the lies that they needed to go along with the war plans?<<
:D Oh, that's right. the template. Bush the idiot fooled all those ingenius liberals. Get a fucking clue moron.
>>Uhh, there WAS no vote in the UN because the lying bastard knew they weren't gonna buy into his fucking lies. So his UN rep never proposed the matter to the Security Council as originally planned.<<
:D Once again, the idiot Bush fooled them all :D
>>Speaking of limp-wristed, how are your "boys" doing in Iraq lately? Funny how they can't seem to make any headway in four years, despite all that humongous advantage in firepower and equipment. Care to hazard an explanation for this humiliation?<<
There you go Mickey! There's the real colors. We're doing pretty well actually. How many have we killed? 600,000? LMAO!
>>Sorry to hear you're such a 'fraidy-cat. Who or what are you afraid of? "Limp-wristed" Canadians? <<
Afraid of you? :D Man, that's funny.
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"Why not just tell me who brought the matter up in Congress and whose administration fed them the lies that they needed to go along with the war plans?"
what? You mean like the democrats speaking about Iraq when Bush was still Governor of Texas?
And then later by the CIA Director Bill Clinton appointed that continued to serve under Bush?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNgaVtVaiJE (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNgaVtVaiJE)
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<<That's right, you're a Canadain with penis envy. >>
Gee, you sure seem to mention penis envy an awful lot. Way more than anyone else in this forum. You some kind of expert on it or what? You sure as hell don't have any academic degrees that would qualify you, is all this knowledge of the subject from personal experience?
<<You accuse the presidet, where's your proof? >>
The public record. Unless you slept through the last five years in a cave, you must have seen this moron and his administration lying their asses off about the "threat" from Iraq and the need for war. Or were you suffering from some kind of cognitive impairment all that time?
<<Where's the indictments? >>
ROTFLMFAO. What indictments? From whom? From Alberto Gonzalez? That little crook wouldn't indict Adolf Hitler if Hitler gave $150 to the Republicans. He'd best be worried about his own indictments in the coming years. The whole fucking system's corrupt for christ sake. They'll indict Bill Clinton for a blow job before they indict Bush for war crimes, torture and mass murder.
<<I know, I know, in your bizzarro world all you have to do is say something in and it's true. >>
Blow it out your ass, Richpo. Everything I said is true and everything you said is ridiculous.
<< Fortunetly for the rest of us proof is required.>>
What "rest of us?" The last 10% or 20% that are so fucking stupid they still don't know what Bush did?
<<Cheesy Oh, that's right. the template. Bush the idiot fooled all those ingenius liberals.>>
FOOLED them? Are you fucking nuts? They KNEW what was going down, they just didn't have the guts to stop it. Still don't. All they needed was a fig leaf, an excuse to go along. THAT'S what the lies were for.
<< Get a fucking clue moron.>>
I've got 'em ALL, pea-brain. You're the one needs a clue.
<<Once again, the idiot Bush fooled them all [by not bringing his resolution to the Security Council] >>
Still don't get it, eh, Neanderthal? I'll explain it again, and this time I'll type real slow. Bush had proposed to bring a motion before the Security Council to ask for a vote authorizing the use of force. The night before, realizing that the other members of the Security Council would NOT go along with the motion - - i.e., were NOT going to authorize the use of force - - Bush decided not to put the matter before the Security Council, so that he wouldn't be humiliated by having them vote down the use of force that he had planned to ask them to authorize. Got it? So the incident was a case of the idiot Bush (your words) NOT being able to "fool them all" because they saw through his lies and were NOT going to be fooled by them. Exactly the opposite of what you stated.
<<We're doing pretty well actually. How many have we killed? 600,000? LMAO!>>
So you've spent four years in a Third World nation of only 23 million people, whom you STILL haven't conquered, despite having a total monopoly on airpower and a huge superiority in weaponry and equipment, and you call that "doing pretty well?" You're hilarious, Rich. Man, I'd sure hate to see what you consider "doing poorly." Incidentally since you killed 600,000 and the insurgency is still going full-blast, it would seem that most of your victims aren't combatants at all, but women, children and the elderly. Again, since you seem so fascinated by the phenomenon of the "limp-wristed," might I ask when your - - uh, boys - - ever plan on taking on the men of the Iraqi Resistance mano-a-mano, or do they need to do a lot more "wrist strengthening" before they can work up the balls for that job?
<<Afraid of you? Cheesy Man, that's funny.>>
Well, you must have armed yourself against somebody or something, Rich. C'mon, tell us, who or what are you afraid of?
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Ho hum.
I did it again didn't I.
My apologies to the rest of the members. It's an amazing study though. The leftist mind is a twisted thing.
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Yeah, Richpo, you did it again. Copped out when you ran out of answers. And just when it was getting interesting. I thought I was about to discover why you seemed to be such an expert on penis envy and who or what you were arming yourself against.
And now, I'll never know. Awwww, shit.