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No Comments [ Add Comment ]Karl Rove, exit stage right
Bush'
s brain is leaving the White House.
That's the nickname critics -- and even some admirers -- have given Karl Rove, the former Utahn who has been President George W. Bush's chief political adviser and strategist since the mid-1990s. Vilified by opponents, Rove oversaw the rise of Bush to the office of Texas governor and then on to two terms as U.S. president, a staggeringly impressive accomplishment.
Rove, who was a legendary debate champion -- in Utah high school circles, anyway -- at Salt Lake City's Olympus High, has long been a two-fisted political operative, never above eye-gouging Democrats as Bush and other Republicans sought to gain and retain positions of power across the land. This has consistently made Rove a target for similar below-the-belt tactics by those on the political left, a role he seems to have relished.
Though speculation swirls as to Rove's next move -- will it be to head-up former Sen. Fred Thompson's so-far unconventional run for the White House? -- Rove told The Wall Street Journal he won't be involved in any candidates' 2008 race, though he will remain "active" as an outsider, offering advice when asked. He says Bush has urged him to write a book about his experiences, though one has to wonder about how frank and revealing Rove would really be about his own role and that of his soon-to-be-former boss.
Rove's fans, and they are legion, point to his winning strategy of courting evangelical Christians as the pivot that tipped two presidential elections toward Bush. He leveraged right-wing talk radio programs by offering interview access to top administration officials, and fed daily "talking points" to radio hosts so that tens of millions of listeners would be updated as to the administration's thinking on a range of topics without being filtered and assessed via the objective press. It was brilliant.
But while Rove's political opponents would probably agree that his methodology was effective, they would accuse him of increasing -- to the nation's detriment -- the rancorous partisanship in America. Rove's preference seemed to be to not simply win, but to destroy the opposition in the process. For example, the accusations that people who disagreed with the administration's Iraq war policies or domestic surveillance programs are "unpatriotic" or coddling the enemy put a shotgun blast to the centuries-old tradition of the "loyal opposition" in U.S. politics. It leaves an open wound that may or may not be healed in our lifetimes.
And while history will, as it always does, judge Rove in due time, Congress may not have to wait so long. It remains to be seen whether Democratic Party- controlled congressional investigative committees will be able to force Rove to testify once he's out from under the protective barrier of "executive privilege." Longtime Democratic foes in Congress are salivating at the thought of grilling him on the subjects of the firings of Justice Department prosecutors and perhaps even the outing of Valerie Plame as a covert CIA agent.
This means, of course, we haven't begun to hear the last of Karl Rove.
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