I was lamenting in a recent email to a correspondent that one of the problems of the nascent Iraqi democracy is its lack of pluralism – in its first iteration, a grudge and shame culture has merely chosen a new way for the power hungry to claw their way to the top of a heap and execute the powers of government by “winner-take-all” decree. Our own democracy, I might have added, is so much more mature.
So much more mature that the only people who are in any real danger of political crucifixion are those actually in a position to wield power. Thus it was that Scooter Libby was sentenced to two years in jail and a fine for having a different recollection of past events than a journalist did, while Sandy Berger was merely chastened for having stolen classified government documents from the US Archives. As chief of staff to a sitting vice president, Libby was a juicy target, a player in the game. But what point would there be going after Berger? After all, he was a relic of the 90’s era of power politics, and that whole decade?
So ten years ago.
Thus it was this morning that I awoke to the news that Karl Rove has once again slipped the hangman’s noose, my slumbers disturbed by the anguished cries of those whose most cherished dreams revolved around the image of the president’s political advisor “frog marched” out of the White House for crimes they just knew he had to have committed. Evidence of course, could not be found – not even by a special prosecutor determinedly playing the role of a 21st century Javert to Rove’s unlikely Jean Valjean. Yet absence of evidence does not necessarily imply evidence of absence, and how else to explain the fact that George W. Bush was not once but twice elected installed as president? Crime enough, declare the committed partisans of our mature democratic system, and if there isn’t a law well then maybe there ought to be.
Ecce: Mute witness to the tracks of their tears, a screen cap from today’s Memeorandum:
The timing of all this is exquisite to such as dearly love to “question the timing” of such things. A Congress which has battered itself against the wall of presidential immobility – especially with regard to an Attorney General whose job title now appears to include “Embattled” as an obligatory modifier – is now in recess. When it returns the political scene will be taken up with spending bills and the Petraeus report, and by October Rove will have completed his transformation into a Bergeresque anachronism. Karl who?
He will leave, but not without taking one – in my view quite justified – parting shot:
A big debate among Republicans these days is who bears more blame for 2006 — Messrs. Bush and Rove, or the behavior of the GOP Congress. Mr. Rove has no doubt. “The sense of entitlement was there” among Republicans, he says, “and people smelled it.” Yet even with a unified Democratic Party and the war, he argues, it was “a really close election.” The GOP lost the Senate by its 3,562 vote margin of defeat in Montana, and in the House the combined margin in the 15 seats that cost control was 85,000 votes.
A prominent non-Beltway Republican recently gave me a different analysis, arguing that the White House made a disastrous decision to “nationalize” the election last autumn; this played into Democratic hands and cost numerous seats.
“I disagree,” Mr. Rove replies. “The election was nationalized. It was always going to be about Iraq and the conduct of Republicans.” He says Republican Chris Shays and Independent-Democrat Joe Lieberman survived in Connecticut despite supporting the war, while Republicans who were linked to corruption or were complacent lost. His biggest error, Mr. Rove says, was in not working soon enough to replace Republicans tainted by scandal.
Rove goes on to say that the political right might well win another turn at the executive helm in 2008, a prediction I suppose he has to make, no matter how little he might believe in it himself. Even if the electorate’s reliable appetite for “change” did not manifest itself in the usual eight year cycle, the Republican Party machine – having forgotten nothing and learned nothing – has split along cultural lines, having shot itself in the foot by pandering to nativist sympathies and continuing to engage in willful self-deception on the real root causes of their congressional losses. They seem passionately dedicated to a generation or two in the wilderness working out a theory of government that doesn’t involve spending just a little less than the boys across the aisle while diddling the help.
Karl Rove will get to watch it all from retirement.
I’m wondering how long it will be before the Dem’s having him swinging from a noose over some infraction, hauling his hiney into court.
My guess it that they’ll time it just so that it’ll be too late for GW to pardon him before leaving office next year.
“…Republican Party machine – having forgotten nothing and learned nothing – has split along cultural lines, having shot itself in the foot by pandering to nativist sympathies…”
And that was how Rove operated for the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections. Among other tactics and groups, he targeted the “evangelicals” in order to win just the slimmest of majorities over Gore and Kerry. One can see how the administration suddenly becomes beholden, on some level, to that group that helped put them into office, not once but twice.
The current flock of repub candidates positioning to replace the president have been doing a lot to distance themselves from him. I don’t see The Architect’s phone ringing just yet. He’ll make plenty of $$ when he writes his book.
re “…by pandering to nativist sympathies”
Ahhh! Must be about that great Amnesty bill that didn’t. I reckon I’m a native then.
re “…passionately dedicated to a generation or two in the wilderness working out a theory of government.”
Pretty preachy for a non-nativist poly sci major!I concur on your “sentiment”, however, I thought the Dims were slated for that role after the 2004 election. Didn’t you? w Amazingly fickle the American electorate are..stranger things have happened and may happen in ‘08.
re “…while diddling the help.”
I think both sides of the aisles and even senior Naval Officers are caught from time to time diddlin help…
Look. I ain’t happy with the “Party of my Affiliation”. As a matter of fact I’ve witheld any $$ until they figure out what they want to be- leaders or Dim-Lights? Every cuppla weeks they call from HQ and request contributions. When that happens I co-opt the pitch and say I am only contributing to candidates and organizations that have a chance of winning.
However, as fugged up as they appear to be, consider the alternative. Insert thoughts of Hiil as pres…
It’s a two party system. Power and backing to win come from the system. 3rd party movements, libertarians and those folks who don’t vote much, called Independents get my ire because they simply empower the Dims.
Seconded, Irish. I’ll add that the caucases are responsible for the reelection of their members, and each individual member is responsible for his own survival. Rove’s part was little more than advisory. Is it Rove’s fault that naval aviators are illsuited for the responsibilities of office?
Oh, pride! But I will now feel free to spout the core truth. Hapless readers need only shake their heads and hastily skip down to the next commenter.
It flatters us all, lefties and righties, that Rove was this great evil svengali, or political genius/secret reelection weapon. Not so. Rove was the road kill of the confluence of the success of displaying the lurid picture of Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinski, and the fact that Karl Rove is errr*, ‘unphotogenic’, and thus the perfect candidate for a copy – cat smear campaign based not on sex, but eeeeevil.
People understand and are greatly fascinated with sexual innuendo and with equal gusto love to glory in virtue by joining the mob and piling on perceived evil.
It was never necessary to find actual wrongdoing with Rove and his peers. Just his picture was enough, just as Monica’s picture was. A symbol. A totem. Just exactly what did Clinton and Lewinsky do on that carpet? Who cares! We all have our own internal picture, and they’re all doozies!
It’s all just appearances. And the self – destructive skills of our deeply flawed MSM.
Rest in peace, Karl – you’ve earned it. Have some pity for our communal loss of future generations of smart, capable citizens who will never touch government service, at any level, with a ten – foot pole.
*To paraphrase the great actor Stepin Fetchit….”Come on! vocabulary, do your stuff!”.
I think Rove took a look at the board and decided to get while the getting is good. He’ll spend the next year dodging subpoenas anyway.
The 2000 and 2004 elections were as much about democratic buffoonery as about anything Rove did. Had the Democrats had the ability to get someone credible in the candidates position instead of grasping at straws like Kerry they probably could have won. Especially when you consider that Kerry picked up 249 Electoral College votes. But for Ohio……..
The Republicans are going to have the same problem the Democrats have had-lack of one person to unify around.
cottus,
Agreed, for the masses on the left, it was never neccessary to find evidence of wrong doing. All that was neccessary was an unhealthy hatred of all things George Bush, and anyone remotely tied to him. That’s one of the things that disgusts me about the left today; it doesn’t seem to be about a different view of how the country should be run. It’s about delivering a defeat to GWB and the Republicans… no matter the cost to the country. After all, what’s it to them if Iraq goes up in flames and hundreds of thousands are killed like they were in the Cambodian killing fields… as long as it means a humiliation of GWB and the Republican party. Does anyone else remember James Clyburn’s (D – SC) comments a few weeks ago… “He’s worried that Gen. Petraeus’ good news about the surge might be “a real problem for us” — “us” being anti-war Democrats”.
I will disagree with you about the Clinton/Lewinski mess. I, like many, don’t really care what they did in the oval. In fact, I’d really rather not think about it. What caused me and many others to be so anti-Clinton is the fact that he committed perjury. Add to that the fact that he did everything he could to destroy our military, and, well, he needed to go, and the Whitehouse needed to be steam cleaned and disinfected… Just my 2 cents.
Jim C
What I think folks are missing is that Rove’s job was to win an election. So he examines the data, discovers that Group X is likely to vote for His Guy at a rate of Y percent, all he has to do is add up those votes in each state and count the electoral votes, then tell his employer what to say to get them. Even 40% of the popular vote is enough when you’re counting the electoral votes, since that’s what it takes to win.
This is not something that is only found in the Bush administration. This is how we are seen, members of groups that can be statistically quantified and exploited, or pandered to. If it’s done by a retailer we call it “data mining,” but if it’s done by a politician we get all indignant that we are considered such sell-outs.
As the old joke goes, I know what we are, now we’re just arguing over price.
– Max