If you had backdated this post you would have had a scoop.
I think he is leaving to follow his muse as MC Rove.
Why'd you link to the NYT summary? Original article here.
Interesting that he sees a lot of vetoes coming up. I'd have loved to have seen what else was on those sheets of paper.
I totally banged out a great post on this, complete with coprophilia references, within minutes of learning about it from the "Naming Conventions" thread, and then the Poor Man's database died before anybody could see it. Daaaaaaamn yoooouuuuu, flaky servers.
Alternately, the Poor Man's database neatly prevented me from being embarrassed by the hurried shoddiness of my cheap joke.
Digressively, "embarassed" is the more common spelling of the word, according to google. A sign of illiteracy, or the natural evolution of language?
My first thought was that he is resigning so he can be courted by a new presidential campaign (which he denies in the article) without being attached to the trainwreck that is this administration.
This is one of those stories that looks interesting at first glance, but I can't see any way to tell if it means anything or nothing.
Alternately, the Poor Man's database neatly prevented me from being embarrassed by the hurried shoddiness of my cheap joke
Except it's in the RSS feed.
Nice, slol. Backhand fadeaway dis.
Probably it's time for Sifu to change names. "Vlad the Impaler" is still up for grabs. So is "Leopold Hogmouth".
I understand he'll be joining the Ron Paul campaign.
We live in a weird enough world that I'm entirely unsure as to whether that was a joke.
As I've been arguing for years, Rove has been wildly overestimated by all sides since day one. Liberals played him up as the evil genius ("Bush's brain!") because of an understandable emotional desire to find a simple explanation for how everything had gone to shit, conservatives happily accepted this assessment because it flattered their conception of themselves as political tough guys to have a "mastermind" in their corner, and the media focused obsessively on Rove's supposed brilliance and influence because of the press corps' childish fascination with Great Man narratives and because their "objectivity"-driven need to turn any policy debate into a process story necessarily made political hacks like Rove more prominent than actual debate over the merits of invading Iraq.
All of these parties were in some sense praising Rove's political instincts, but the only true political gift Rove had was a gift for sliming his opponents. That's not nothing, obviously, but his governing philosophy - always pander to the base, because at the end of the day you don't need anyone else - has proven a disaster for his boss and his party. Pandering endlessly to the warmongers has meant passing up several opportunities for slithering out of Iraq and declaring victory - would the Democrats have Congress right now if Bush had pulled out of Iraq after one of the various purple-finger elections? At the same time, Rove's has deviated from his own strategy in supporting Bush's push for immigration reform - and in doing so has split the Republican party and pushed Bush's numbers even lower than before.
How was this guy ever a genius? Because he was "brilliant" enough to realize that rumors of having an illegitimate black child would make John McCain look bad in South Carolina? Because only a genius could realize that a wartime president with an approval rating in the 70s following an attack on the country could use national security as a political tool? Karl Rove is still the same guy who had Bush campaigning in California in October of 2000 - a guy who knows the basics of mud-slinging but seems clueless on the big picture of how politics is supposed to work. But someone had to be wearing the devil horns for the last six years, and Turd Blossom was as good a choice as any.
How was this guy ever a genius?
From what I've read, he was one of the three or four most important people in turning the southeast bright red during the '90s with his incredibly, brilliantly dirty campaigns for things like superior court judge. But yeah, he almost blew it in 2000 by having Bush do a victory lap immediately before the election, and he hasn't shown much mastery of the current political situation.
From what I've read, he was one of the three or four most important people in turning the southeast bright red during the '90s
He was working in Texas and Alabama during the 90s. It doesn't take a genius to get right-wing Republicans elected in Texas and Alabama.
I'm not sure this can be fruitful, what with all the counterfactuals, but it seems to me that no friggin' way should Bush have managed to be reelected in 2004, so some credit to Rove for that one.
The Gigot piece treats 2004 as his greatest victory; certainly it's the one that caused me the most pain in a partisan way. 2002 probably did more damage though , which both the re-election of Bush and the increase in Congress in 2004 intensified.
I'm not sure this can be fruitful, what with all the counterfactuals, but it seems to me that no friggin' way should Bush have managed to be reelected in 2004, so some credit to Rove for that one.
You might be overstating the extent to which you are representative of voters.
Rove didn't do it all himself, but he was a major player.
In success terms, Bush-Rove appointed two hard-right judges, giving the right a majority. They rewrote the tax code. They reversed anywhere from 50 to 700 years of civil liberties progress. They increased the militarization of American culture. They reconfigured the international system in a way whose outcome is as yet unknown (they're not done yet). These are negative but enormous accomplishments, especially for a President elected narrowly on the basis of a less-than-mediocre record.
The Supreme Court change is permanent (and the three youngest judges are hard right). The Democrats may or may not roll back the others. Who trusts them to?
I call Rove a success in terms of his goals, and he did it by taking a hard line and being willing to gamble and bluff. The "genius" part is mostly the Republicans' amazing GOTV -Voter registration machine, which admittedly isn't entirely Rove's doing, but he was completely on top of the information available and used it well.
I Expected A Much Smaller Man
Ah yes, Poop Valhalla - Triumph's greatest triumph.
He's getting away from the administration the better to plot Obama's assassination, the poisoning of Elizabeth Edwards's chemo drips, and catching Hillary in bed with a series of hookers.
All of which he's going to do from Mexico.
He was working in Texas and Alabama during the 90s. It doesn't take a genius to get right-wing Republicans elected in Texas and Alabama.
You say that, but there were huge legacy benches of conservative Democrats, often well-thought of, in these states; at the state level, the 1994 Gingrich elections didn't wipe them out. It takes a genius like Karl Rove to prime the pump for that sort of mass realignment, even when the preconditions are there. Look what he managed in 2006.
The Rove resignation is worrisome & troublous. My first reaction was:"This means they are going to attack Iran." Godstruth.
Bob, please connect those dots for me.
But in fairness isn't that your first reaction to about three news items every week, mcmanus?
25:Partly joking, but a serious scenario:Rove will no longer be needed for spin, damage control, legislative whip-cracking because Bush/Cheney will really have little to lose in 2008. Impeachment would not be started in June of October. A full-on War with Iran will so immediately catastrophic and the further consequences so apparent that politics-as-persuasion will become irrelevant. Domestic politics will be about getting your troops to the street, ready to fight. John Reed October Politics.
Rove will be most useful organizing the nuts-and-bolts of the Congressional Elections, seeking maybe just a little bigger minority for the 3rd Bush/Cheney term, a Congress not quite in open revolt, seeking to end the State of Emergency thru peaceful, legal, means. Just enough to retain the filibuster. Rove can also explain to Repub Congresspeoples at the local level why it is in their best interests to cooperate.
Does anybody know what Rove was doing in Nov/Dec 2000 on a daily basis?
Or if not suspended elections, a really questionable Giuliani win. Or something. But 2008 is going to be the worst year in exactly 30 years. A nightmare.
26:At least.
s/b "exactly 40 years"
But probably not worse than 1968. Or worse, in a different way, an even greater sense of futility and hopelessness.
Of course this is all assertional, but compelling in a way that the x-files and all just-barely-incomplete narratives are. I'm wondering what course of action bob plans on taking. Wouldn't it be time to get out of Dodge?
27:
Does anybody know what Rove was doing in Nov/Dec 2000 on a daily basis?
Organizing this, among other things.
"I'm wondering what course of action bob plans on taking."
I am old enough & tired and experience teaches that Life ends in utter humiliation, degradation, surprisingly unexpected amounts of pain, etc. I am relativey free of responsibilities and committments. I expect everything to get much worse
Whatever happens. I don't think I would leave if I could.
30:And I think we are going to see a lot of that next year, or enough at the point it is needed.
I agree with Bob.
Remember how panicked we all were before the 2006 election because there so many ways the Republicans were stealing it? Well, it turned out not to matter. But...what was done about that?