Michelle Malkin is just one of many Republicans who have pounced on the bloody carcase of Karl Rove. It's all his fault, she seems to say, for everything from The Harriet Miers debacle, the Dubai Ports Deal disaster, to the Amnesty Reform Bill-she evens seems to be blaming him for Iraq.
Of course, what she is inferring, or seems to be, is that Rove was not quite the boy genius at garnering public support for the President's Iraq war policy.
In other words, she seems to be unfortunately jumping on the "Save Bush Legacy-Blame Karl Rove Foundation" bandwagon.
At the same time, she seems reluctant to criticize him over the Valerie Plame affair, an incident in which he most assuredly was involved on at least some level, if in no other way than the shoddy manner in which the public relations battle played out.
Sure, a good lot of it is his fault. A good many other things are his fault, as well. In a sense, his electoral and political strategies are to a great extent responsible for a lot of the ill-will that has festered over the last six and a half years.
And you can make the same case in innumerable other instances of his encouragement and promotion of disastrous policies. Now that he has fallen on his sword in a calculated signal ("I want to spend more time with my family") that he will no longer be in the loop, it would seem to be in the hope that Bush can indeed salvage something worthwhile in his remaining short year and a half in office.
This is a change in tactics and strategy, but not of direction. It is a necessary move, however. When none of the current Republican contenders for the 2008 Republican Presidential nomination seem to want anything to do with him, when GOP Senators and Congressmen want to avoid him as much as possible, how can Bush accomplish anything of value otherwise?
The answer is to sacrifice Rove in the hopes that he can salvage something before it is too late. Otherwise, in the eyes of future historians, he might well join the ignoble company of James Buchanan, Warren G. Harding, and Herbert Hoover in a symbolic Mount Rushmore of shame-the worse Presidents in US history.
With Rove now gone, we will soon see a kinder, gentler, yet still assuredly tough and manly Bush. We will see the "real" Bush, the Bush who got along swimmingly with the Democrats of the Texas legislature, and who is willing to work now with Democrats "for the good of the American people".
After all, didn't he always from the very beginning bemoan the culture of incivility that permeated Washington national politics?
It was all Roves fault that he was led astray. Now, things will be the way they should have always been, since Rove has gone.
Of course, none of this will be said openly, but that will be the overall impression and the underlying message that will be put out there. Hell, it's probably Rove's idea.
But shit, remember, everything from beginning to end was all Bush's "charge to keep". Rove was only in charge of the sales pitch.
Of course, what she is inferring, or seems to be, is that Rove was not quite the boy genius at garnering public support for the President's Iraq war policy.
In other words, she seems to be unfortunately jumping on the "Save Bush Legacy-Blame Karl Rove Foundation" bandwagon.
At the same time, she seems reluctant to criticize him over the Valerie Plame affair, an incident in which he most assuredly was involved on at least some level, if in no other way than the shoddy manner in which the public relations battle played out.
Sure, a good lot of it is his fault. A good many other things are his fault, as well. In a sense, his electoral and political strategies are to a great extent responsible for a lot of the ill-will that has festered over the last six and a half years.
And you can make the same case in innumerable other instances of his encouragement and promotion of disastrous policies. Now that he has fallen on his sword in a calculated signal ("I want to spend more time with my family") that he will no longer be in the loop, it would seem to be in the hope that Bush can indeed salvage something worthwhile in his remaining short year and a half in office.
This is a change in tactics and strategy, but not of direction. It is a necessary move, however. When none of the current Republican contenders for the 2008 Republican Presidential nomination seem to want anything to do with him, when GOP Senators and Congressmen want to avoid him as much as possible, how can Bush accomplish anything of value otherwise?
The answer is to sacrifice Rove in the hopes that he can salvage something before it is too late. Otherwise, in the eyes of future historians, he might well join the ignoble company of James Buchanan, Warren G. Harding, and Herbert Hoover in a symbolic Mount Rushmore of shame-the worse Presidents in US history.
With Rove now gone, we will soon see a kinder, gentler, yet still assuredly tough and manly Bush. We will see the "real" Bush, the Bush who got along swimmingly with the Democrats of the Texas legislature, and who is willing to work now with Democrats "for the good of the American people".
After all, didn't he always from the very beginning bemoan the culture of incivility that permeated Washington national politics?
It was all Roves fault that he was led astray. Now, things will be the way they should have always been, since Rove has gone.
Of course, none of this will be said openly, but that will be the overall impression and the underlying message that will be put out there. Hell, it's probably Rove's idea.
But shit, remember, everything from beginning to end was all Bush's "charge to keep". Rove was only in charge of the sales pitch.
10 comments:
Interesting Malkin is turning on him.
Rove's short term wins, will hurt the GOP eternally. His strategy killed conservatism.
Every conservative candidate, has to pass a religious litmus test, whether they want to or not.
To young people, the GOP is for hating gays. Young people are not offended by gay lifestyles.
Rove caved in to his party's right on immigration, and lost Latino voters.
I give the GOP about 5 more years to exist at all. They will never have another president.
I think liberals hate Rove, more than Bush.
Now let's go after Dems.
Ren-I don't know where you've been getting your info, but it's badly flawed. Bush was not against immigrants, that immigration reform bill that got rightly shot down was Bush's tar baby.
A majority of people hated that bill, that's why it lost. The only group that supported it was Latinos, and even they were by no means universally in favor of it. A large percentage of Latino citizens, if not most of them, who are legal immigrants were also opposed to it.
Otherwise you are right about the Rovean strategies costing the GOP,a nd about the religious litmus test.
Of course, Malkin and other conservatives had no problem with Rove when it looked like his strategies worked. Rove turned all of them into political clones of the Dems-cater and kiss up to the party base, don't worry about the mainstream voter because they will eventually get in line too.
Now Americans are moving center left, where they had been center right for three decades or more.
But these things always go in cycles. The Republicans fell apart too in '64, and survived, and managed to weather the storm of the Nixon debacle in the mid-seventies.
Politicians are just like all us other members of the naked ape species of animal. They never learn from history. But yeah, they'll survive this. The democrats will be just as stupid as they are, in fact they already are. It won't be that long before they have people as pissed off at them as they are against the Republicans. You can bet good money on that.
James Buchanan, Warren G. Harding, and Herbert Hoover... the worse Presidents in US history.
Hardly. The worst US presidents were:
Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was caught with his pants down at Pearl Harbour, and capitulated to Stalin at Yalta. 400,000 Americans died as result of his total incompetence in failure to convince the American people of the absolute necessity to join WWII in September 1939 instead of December 1941.
John F. Kennedy, who appeared weak and indecisive in a crucial meeting with Khruschev in Vienna, (as well as during Bay of Pigs, refusing to provide air support), resulting in the Cuban Missile Crisis that almost led to nuclear Holocaust.
Jimmy Carter, who turned against the Shah of Iran only to discover that the alternative was 10 times worse, and whose only response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was to forbid US athletes from competing in the Olympic Games in Moscow.
Compared to those debacles (many of which, like Cuba, Iran and Afghanistan) still haunt us to this day, Hoover's ill-advised Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of June 1930, Warding's corruption scandals and Buchanan's refusal to play prison warden and shoot escaping Southern states in the back as they were leaving the Union, appear pretty minor by comparison...
Sonia-If you will notice, I mused on how Bush might fear he would look in the eyes of future historians-not in the eyes of The Pagan Temple.
My list of the three worse Presidents is actually quite different as well, though one of theirs is there, in addition to one of yours. They are:
James Buchanan (42)
Calvin Coolidge(41)
Jimmy Carter (40)
I rank Franklin Roosevelt at number 3, between Lincoln (2) and Jefferson (4), with Washington at number one.
Kennedy I would put at number 19.
I'm toying with the idea of doing a post giving my complete list of rankings, then doing an individual post on each one in order of their terms (beginning with Washington, followed by Adams, etc.).
If I do that I will give my reasoning on each individual post.
My best list would be as follow:
Best:
1. James K. Polk (for doubling the size of the United States)
2. Thomas Jefferson (for Louisiana Purchase and Sally Hemmings)
3. Andrew Johnson (for buying Alaska, despite the public calling it 'Andrew Johnson's polar bear garden').
I always heard it called "Seward's Folly" and "Seward's Icebox", that one is a new one on me.
I've got Polk at 9 and Johnson at 16.
Most historians put Johnson toward the bottom, but in addition to Alaska, he prevented the Congress from overpowering the executive branch by trying to control the tenures of cabinet members.
He also limited the Union's rapaciousness and vengefulness towards the Southern States, which is why many of the more left-wing historians think so lowly of him, in my opinion.
A post about presidential ranking is a great idea, btw. I will do one too, and we can compare notes.
Yeah, that would be great. I look forward to comparing our two lists. Try to make it an exercise in objectivity, though, otherwise it will look like just another exercise in ideological partisanship.
I've been thinking about this for some time, and came to the conclusion that a truly fair, objective list would have Reagan somewhat higher on the list than Clinton, for what should be obvious reasons. He would not be quite as high as most Republicans would put him, though, nor would Clinton be as low as they would put him-and vice versa on both counts with Democrats.
I will try to put my list on next Sunday or Monday. Then, every week after, I will try to go down the list individually, beginning with Washington.
I think you might be surprised where I put Bush. The only one I will not include is William Henry Harrison.
William Henry Harrison and James Garfield are 'placebo' presidents, who didn't have enough time to do anything, good or bad. They should both be somewhere in the middle, separating good presidents from bad presidents.
No, I'm leaving Harrison off my list. You made a good point about Garfield, though. I'm thinking that what I will probably do is turn Garfield/Arthur into one unit, and just judge that term from 1881-1885.
As it is, I have Arthur at #25. Judging the two presidents as a unit, for that one full term, plays out pretty much the same. Arthur basically followed through with Garfield's stated agenda of reforming the civil service.
I'm glad you pointed that out to me, in that you gave me the idea to judge them as one. Garfield judged on his own was always problematic.
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