Rove's career demonstrates that the qualities which help you run a winning political campaign may in fact work against you once your candidate gets into office. This is why in most cases the person a politician hires to run his campaign is not the same person he hires to run things and advise him once he's elected. President Bush's tendency to become sentimentally attached to the people he works closely with worked against him with Rove, keeping him around far longer than was wise.
There has been a dismaying effort on the left to demonize and dehumanize Rove beyond anything which is appropriate based on his conduct. Rove has given them plenty of material from which to stir up controversy, but very little of substance to follow through on. It almost makes me wonder if Rove's role in the White House was to distract attention with trivial pseudo-scandals which could never go anywhere, but drew attention away from other activities of a more nefarious nature.
Rove is now on his way out, and few seem sad to see him go. Republicans are breathing a sign of relief and hoping that the partisan attack machine will become a bit more civil with him gone. Democrats are claiming victory and promising to contiue to harass Rove as a private citizen in revenge for his supposed outrages while in the White House.
For me Rove remains an enigma. He has always radiated an aura of peculiar innocence and exuberance which seems totally at odds with the public perception of a machiavellian mastermind. Despite the massive level of personal attacks and verbal abuse loaded on him in the media and in the blogosphere, he seems to have sailed through it all and remained cheerful and self-assured. He has been called every name imaginable from traitor to devil and even been compared with Josef Goebbels. This sort of partisan demonization and dehumanization of political opponents has become more and more common in recent years, and Rove himself has been guilty of it in political campaigns. It's childish and offensive and lowers the quality of political debate, but it has become a mainstay of the angry left's culture of perpetual outrage. The irony is that in attacking Rove they become more and more like Rove, despite the fact that having his example to look at they ought to know better. They are what Rove has made them, and by their actions they legitimize him and become part of the Wrestlemania style of politics he symbolizes.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Amrita
Here's a link to the enigma
2 - Nancy
That he hasn't been convicted of anything, or that no evidence exists to pin blame to him, doesn't mean he's innocent. You can be guilty as sin, and be just as guilty as the one who pulls the trigger, yet nothing connects you - legally, mind - to the murder. As you yourself [Dave] stated, he's awfully good at covering his ass.
His guilt lies not in his ability to get Republicans elected, any more than Carville is guilty of getting Dems elected; it's the WAY he gets them elected: the dirty tricks, the lies, the slander & libel - all of which have reached new lows under his aegis, & given politics & those associated with all things political an even nastier name & association than they already had, which is quite an achievement - NOT. He's like a human slug, sliding his way along, leaving a trail of slime behind him where ever he goes, & leaving everyone & everything he's touched the worse for it. That he has smeared the good names of good persons - of BOTH parties, especially Cleland, a decorated triple amputee of Vietnam, a war he himself was far too cowardly to fight, along with his patrons, Junior & Cheney - is especially unforgivable.
Maybe he couldn't be convicted in a court of law, Dave, but the miasma of utter ruthlessness, corruption, & indifference to who or what he destroys en route to his goals, is shameful, hateful, selfish, evil. No - none of them actionable; but none of them anything any decent human being would do or think of doing, yet you seem to regard it as business as usual? Maybe we ought also to be questioning YOUR ethics (or lack thereof?) as well, that you're so willing to turn a blind eye to this sort of thing, see it as "the norm"? Because, Dave, THAT is the real crime here: a hardening & lowering of standards to the point of non-existance, just as TV has lowered the standards so that violence is an American norm, 'way beyond what it ever was. See the thread of bulletproof backpacks for little kids. That is the legacy of Karl Rove. He should rot in hell with his bloody buddies, Bush & Cheney.
3 - Dave Nalle
Amrita, your link just brings up a blank page.
Dave
4 - Dave Nalle
Never mind, the page eventually loaded. It just has so much advertising and popups that it's hellishly slow.
I think your link does illustrate my point pretty well. It's a good piece of smearwork in the Rovian tradition. Get a disaffected former staffer, ask him leading questions, and then play up and spin the responses to get what you want. Classic stuff.
Dave
5 - Dave Nalle
Nancy, what you're saying isn't that much different from the point I make in my second to last paragraph. However, dirty tricks preexisted Rove by a couple of thousand years of politics. They're nothing new. Remember when the Romans spread the rumor that Carthaginians sacrificed living babies by burning them alive in the bellies of giant brass Moloch statues?
And no matter what Rove has done - and IMO most of it was pretty much business as usual - no one forced the left to sink to the same level, but they have done so and with a degree of enthusiasm which is troubling.
Dave
6 - Baronius
That Cleland race was brilliant. A legislator is not automatically right on defense because he's served. Good for Chambliss for not backing down. Someone should take Kerry and Murtha down a peg too.
7 - Dave Nalle
How DARE you say such things, Baronius. I'm sure MCH will be along in a bit to reiterate the Starship Troopsers coda of government for you.
Dave
8 - Baronius
Haw! That made my day, Nalle.
9 - REMF
Baronius;
Now why doesn't it surprise me that you'd take the side of a draft-dodger over three combat vets...
Could it be something to do with the words "feather" and "flock"?
(MCH)
10 - Baronius
REMF, I'm taking the side of someone who is right over someone who is wrong.
11 - REMF
"For a nerdy, awkward and superficially harmless looking kid who was abandonned by his father, whose mother committed suicide and who then dropped out of three different colleges, it's quite an achievement by the age of 57 to be more hated than Osama bin Laden, Kim Jong Il and Robert Mugabe rolled into one."
Actually, the real achievement was how he was still able to dodge the draft after dropping out of college three times.
----------------------------
"Rove's primary crime after starting his career with a Nixonian coup to take over the College Republicans, has been to be awfully good at getting Republicans elected to prominent positions in government, something which is understandably unforgivable."
Bullshit, Nalle. Rove's primary crime was engineering the sliming of John McCain's patriotism.
12 - Nancy
I can't tell whether you find the Rove tactics against Cleland good or bad,B. Are you admiring it or censuring it?
The point is, no, the left doesn't have to sink to that level. But they wouldn't have - or the sinking would have been a helluva lot slower - if Rove hadn't plunged straight to the bottom.
Of COURSE I know dirty tricks is nothing new, ferchrissakes. I mentioned Machiavelli & Sun, didn't I? But I thought from all your former arguments about why we shouldn't sink to the level of the Iraqi insurgents, that we were supposed to be taking the high road? Or have you changed your mind about high roads?
BTW - while I may not agree with your assessment of Rove, I thought the article was very well written & I liked it. You did bring out a lot of salient points & good info. You write good, as they say. Even if I don't always see to eye w/you, I like your writing style.
13 - Baronius
Nancy, I didn't see all the Chambliss ads. I've heard that some crossed the line, but everything I saw was just good, solid campaigning.
I admire the heck out of people who've served their country. But I've always hated bullies. Cleland, Kerry, Murtha, and REMF are bullies who use their military records to silence criticism. I say, no way. Defend your beliefs on their merits, not on the merits of actions you took earlier in your life.
It's not unfair to bring up a candidate's voting record. Cleland wasn't running for Best Vet. On a side note, I recall that McCain was one of the people who criticized Chambliss' ads. McCain is another great example of a politician who coasts on his military record. McCain's condemnation makes me more inclined to support Chambliss.
14 - Baronius
Note - If I just broke the "no personal attacks" policy, I'm sorry. Feel free to delete the offensive portion.
15 - handyguy
It's a slippery slope to start calling political opponents evil. But many of us are embittered by the presidency of a man who did not earn it, is not worthy of it, and has done so many awful things and so few good things in 6-plus years...so we blame the guy who helped put him there. Rove's pandering to the religious right is unpleasant to behold, and the Plame case and the dismissed-attorneys affair are both pretty ugly. But not criminal.
Still, defending the disgraceful campaign against Max Cleland is unconscionable. Putting his picture next to bin Laden and Saddam in an ad...should have been laughed off the air...but it worked! This may say more about Georgia than about Rove, but as Chuck Hagel said, the ads were "beyond offensive to me."
16 - Baronius
"putting his picture next to bin Laden and Saddam in an ad"
Handy, have you ever seen footage of this? I can't find it anywhere.
17 - Arch Conservative
"That he hasn't been convicted of anything, or that no evidence exists to pin blame to him, doesn't mean he's innocent."
Oh it doesn't?
Then why have so many clintonistas told me that becasue Slick Willie and Bessie the cow have never been convicted of anything, or had hard evidence to pin them down, they are in fact innocent of accusation that has been thrown their way?
Every leftist fuckwit and his mother is chomping at the bit to get a piece of Rove or talk smack about him and they will all tell us how lack of evidence or convictions means you're innocent if you're a fellow leftist but means the mountains of evidence just haven't been discovered yet.
Fuck that.
18 - handyguy
Baronius--
I believe I saw footage at the time, but I don't immediately know of a source. Wikipedia has some material on this, maybe they have a link.
19 - handyguy
Dave, haven't you written something about rumors of KR being gay? It seems his father or stepfather was gay, and maybe the rumor-spreaders got mixed up. This only becomes relevant in the context of Rove's orchestrating anti-gay-marriage sentiment to increase Republican voter turnout. Ugly stuff, that.
20 - Baronius
Handy, Wikipedia has a link to an ad, the only ad I can find on YouTube. It's tough, but I've seen tougher. It doesn't show Chambliss next to Saddam and bin Laden, and doesn't question Chambliss' patriotism. If that's the ad that Chambliss whined about, it only confirms that some ex-military believe that questioning their policies is forbidden.
21 - Dave Nalle
Handy, there have been constant rumors that Rove is gay despite being married and a father. I'm originally from DC and people there claim to have seen him coming out of gay clubs in my old neighborhood around Dupont Circle. Now, this was years ago, but the rumors persist. As I'm sure you know, there are lots of gay Republicans who keep it under wraps and in some cases - Mark Foley - they are the most outwardly religious and intolerant. It's a kind of defense mechanism.
As for Rove, I'm convinced that any position he takes is entirely cynical. I didn't want to go into this in the article, but although he's clearly pro-GOP, Rove's first loyalty is to himself and making money. Working in the White House makes him more marketable as does winning campaigns. If winning a campaign required him to be gay he'd probably come out of the closet.
Dave
22 - Dave Nalle
Actually, the real achievement was how he was still able to dodge the draft after dropping out of college three times.
He didn't really. He was declared 1A right at the end of the war while the lottery was in effect and then the war ended before his number came up.
Bullshit, Nalle. Rove's primary crime was engineering the sliming of John McCain's patriotism.
I think you're confusing McCain and Kerry. He impugned Kerry's war record - which a bright 6-year-old probably could have done. McCain he slimed with a bogus black lovechild.
Dave
23 - bliffle
Ironically, Rove has done more damage to the reps than to the hapless dems who already were self-destroyed (and they just keep on doing it!)
Rove has created enough revulsion and distaste toward reps that it could even overcome the keystone dems inept fumbling in 2006 (led by the useless and nitwitted Rahm Emmanuel).
Being mean and unscrupulous alone does not make one Machiavellian. There must be some intelligent plan that results in a useful outcome.
If John McCain were half the hero we all hoped he was, he would have challenged Rove to a duel after the 2000 SC primary and put a bullet through his head on the grass in front of the Washington memorial. Not a jury in the land would have convicted him. But McCains nerve failed and now we have a rep party and a USA almost destroyed by Roves rampages.
24 - Dave Nalle
You may have a point about the harm Rove has done, but I was reading the papers today and yesterday and my observation is that the more mainstream media isn't nearly as negative about Rove as the blogosphere and some of the TV/cable commentators are. I think maybe the harm Rove did may really be more in the mind of those who would hate the GOP anyway.
Dave
25 - wewillburyu
Karl Rove is the political genius of our time. His timely resignation from the Bush Administration now is tactical. I think he is planning to covertly help elect Mitt Romney to Office in 2008.