Lemon or lemonade? Depending on where you are along the political spectrum, this is either good news or bad news: political junkies woke up this morning and learned that Presidential Political Adviser Karl Rove will be gone from the White house soon. Life handed us Democrats a lemon, and now we can make lemonade. As a Texas Democrat I have bad memories of the Texan Rove. I would just as soon he stay where he is living now.
Karl Rove is resigning at the end of August. Texans are relieved to learn he will not be coming back here to live full time. Since following the body who holds his brain to Washington in 2000, "Bush's Brain" has acquired two more homes. According to "citizendc" at DailyKos (5/2/06), Rove has become a wealthy man. To quote,
Have you ever wondered how a man who owns a $1,500,000 house in DC, a $1,000,000+ house in Florida and a $48,000 cottage in Texas manages to survive on $161,000 a year federal salary? It's odd.
The news of Rove's resignation has produced some wonderful headlines. I have chosen a couple, along with some good story lines, for today's Rove Digest:
- "Analysis: Rove bows out despised and deified" - Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen at Politico. At first glance I thought this said "defied." Then I caught myself, remembering that few people ever defied Karl Rove, even his boss. Those who deified him are not in my circle. Quoting Politico,
Rove will soon be gone -- but it will be a long time before he is forgotten. One can not overstate how much Democrats loathe Rove, and desperately want him dragged into numerous congressional investigations of the Bush White House.
. . . For now, according to friends, Rove will split his time among Washington, where he and his wife Darby are keeping their house; Florida, where they have a resort place that they have put a lot of effort into decorating; and Texas, where their son is in college and they maintain a country house. - "Satan to return to Hell" - Edward Copeland at The Reaction. My co-blogger at Stickings' website gets right to it with his judgement. A quote,
In a surprise move, the dark prince Karl Rove has announced that he will resign his position as Dubya's senior political adviser and return to Texas by the end of the month.
However, give the devil his due: On the way out, he predicts Hillary Nothing-But-Ambition Clinton would take the Democratic nomination, despite being a "fatally flawed candidate."
Karl Quits, By maha on The Mahablog. This deserves a banner headline (maha's links) – "maha" postulates that Rove was "in over his head," which is a different view that that of many. She maked a very persuasive point. To quote further from her post,
. . . Rove’s biggest blind spot — his failure to understand the substance of governing. Rove built his reputation as a political genius because of his ability as a campaign manager to knock off Democratic incumbents in southern states by means of the dirty and dishonest campaigning. But seems to me Rove’s “genius” was less smarts than it was ruthlessness. Rove knows neither boundaries nor scruples. He won campaigns because he was willing to ignore moral and ethical lines and fight dirtier than other (non-sociopathic) campaign managers could imagine.
"Morning Cuppa Benign Neglect" by "scarecrow" at Firedoglake gave us this clever tongue-in-cheek thought on next steps. To quote,
It appears TNH has figured out how to get rid of the Bush/Cheney regime: just ignore them. . . Marcy just stopped giving him so much attention. . . We should ask Marcy to ignore Cheney and Bush for 30 days and test this new approach. It has promise."My Guesses on Why Rove Resigned" - was the headline by Marcy Wheeler at The Next Hurrah. This post has garnered many links this morning, so it must be good. And it is; the narratives beneath each of her "reasons" are right on. Here's her list,
So here's my treatment of possible reasons why he's leaving, in reverse order of their likelihood: Time with the Family, . . Republicans Think He's a Loser, . . Republicans Think He's a Loser, . . Nativist Edition, . . The Sheriff Is Coming, . . The Abramoff Investigation, . . The OSC Investigation, . . The Iglesias Investigation.
"Karl Rove to Resign" - - "georgia 10" at DailyKos announced the news to Kossacks with this simple headline and a few of key quotes from the WSJ article. This was about the only editorial comment,
And, of course, Karl Rove couldn't help being, well, Karl Rove until the very end: [WSJ blockquote]
What do I think? It will be interesting to see who moves into the vacated office. In some ways OCP (our current president) has made better choices the second time around. Robert Gates replaced Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense. Josh Bolton is probably a better chief of staff than his predecessor. Stephen Hadley is probably better at his job, than was Condoleezza Rice. Etc., etc. It would be a very good thing if the same thing happened in this case, but I am not holding my breath.
Reference: Texas Kaos - Progressive politics and news - Texas style!
My “creativity and dreaming” post today at Good Second Mondays is "for the birds."
2 comments:
It's the lack of accountability that irks me!
Why is he allowed to bow out gracefully? He should have been escorted from the building and into a court of law.
Thanks for your comment, with which I agree. Rove's name is on a long list of similar people, too long.
My husband says it will decades to recover from all this. Gee, I hope not, but sometimes it feels like it.
Have a good Monday.
Post a Comment