The Wright Angle
Aug. 20, 2007

I'm really going to miss Karl Rove

By Scott Wright

I was really sorry to hear the announcement that Karl Rove is leaving the White House. Honestly, I was.

That feeling didn't exactly sit well with me, at first; in fact, it made me feel icky all over. I wasn't sure why I could possibly feel any remorse for the temporary retirement of a jackass like Rove. He's the kind of guy who'd throw at his own kid in a father-son baseball game. Just ask John McCain.

Anyway, I figured I'd do some checking, read some articles on the Internet, watch some astute political commentary on TV, and see if I could figure out what in the world had me thinking such a crazy thought.

John Stewart and Stephen Colbert were certainly astute. Some of the most biting, ironically accurate political discourse available in America happens for an hour every weeknight beginning at 10 p.m. on Comedy Central on first “The Daily Show” and then “The Colbert Report.” Despite the laughter I enjoyed, John and Stephen did not bring me any closer to understanding the reasons for my Rove Remorse.

But I did find further evidence that I was right about Rove on Fox Noise Channel. Ann Coulter, a vile, despicable woman, who should have been blackballed a long time before Don Imus insulted a few basketball players, had this to say last week after Rove's announcement: “I've gone back and forth between blaming Karl Rove for the stupid things Bush does and blaming Bush for the stupid stuff Bush does.”

Of course, that old hag Coulter is always blaming somebody for something -- usually a Democrat for giving a hoot about old people or poor children. But she's hardly ever had any cross words for the kooks who pull the president's marionette strings. I was definitely getting warmer. If only one of the dim-witted warmongers from Fox Noise Channel's “Special Report with Brit Hume” would try to justify Rove's abrupt departure, I'd know I was onto something.

Bingo. The day after Rove resigned, The Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol -- a neoconservative warmonger if ever there was one -- appeared utterly shocked by the announcement. Citing the Sept. 15 Iraq progress report from Gen. Petraeus, upcoming budget fights and a hostile, Democratically-controlled Congress, Kristol admitted being “puzzled” by the timing of the announcement.

And then Kristol suddenly shifted gears, almost sounding happy that Rove is leaving by implying that Rove may soon find himself in some hot legal water. (After all, “Bush's Brain” was responsible for politicizing the Justice Department and leaking to the press that Valerie Plame was an undercover CIA agent; he's also ignoring congressional subpoenas demanding that he appear before legislators and explain himself.)

“Maybe there's something we don't know about that will come out soon,” Kristol pondered.

I doubt that, since this administration has displayed a keen acumen for hiding the truth and circumventing the rule of law ever since it backed into office in 2001. So what then? Why do I care if Karl Rove has been put out to pasture? Ultimately, it took a Democrat with much more experience and political savvy that I possess to answer that question.

Good old James Carville, one of the masterminds of Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign, boiled it down to brass tacks in an Aug. 14 editorial in London's Financial Times. Carville reassured that, indeed, Democrats should be sad to see Rove hit the bricks, because he has effectively killed the Republican party for a generation and Rove can't do nearly as much damage if he's no longer pulling knobs and pushing buttons from behind the curtain at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Carville included the results of a poll conducted in June by NBC and the Wall Street Journal found that 52 percent of Americans prefer a Democratic president while 31 only percent want a Republican. Carville also pointed out that the results showed “the largest gap in the 20-year history of the survey.”

That's why I wanted Rove to stay! He's become the master of the Pyrrhic victory.

Sure, he figured out a way to elevate a simpleton to the White House in 2000 and actually (as Carville pointed out) persuaded a majority of Americans to vote for Bush again four years later even though they already knew he couldn't handle the job.

But in the process, Rove and the policies he tried to shove down Americans' throats alienated millions of voters forever, among them gays, college students, soccer moms, NASCAR dads, blacks, whites, the middle class, anyone around retirement age, most folks under the age of 30, Hispanics, U.S. attorneys, CIA agents, and practically everyone who lives in the state of Louisiana. Oops.

A recent USA Today editorial pointed out that Rove's driving directive throughout the first few years of George W. Bush's first term was to establish “an enduring Republican dominance that would last long after Bush left office.” Instead, Rove's divisive politics blew up in his face (apparently singing off most of his hair in the process), and his Republican majority lasted just long enough to hang new drapes in a few Capitol windows and throw a farewell party for the Fourth Amendment. Maybe Rove figured he'd better take one for the team and leave Washington, D.C. before he was the only Republican left in town?

Some Democrats may think Rove is more dangerous outside the White House than inside, but I think the guy's best days are behind him. I can't imagine any Republican candidate for the White House wanting Rove anywhere around his campaign, especially since the ill will Rove has created with so many voters already makes it virtually impossible for the GOP to win in 2008.

Democrats everywhere thank him for that.