In re: Karl Christian Rove

[JeffR]

He's an evil genius. He's the poster child for Hard Right political cunning. He's got Democrats by the short hairs and he's preparing to yank them out by the follicles. He's invincible. He's unstoppable. He's Karl Christian Rove, mastermind of the Thousand Year Bushreich.

Well, no.

I don't doubt, in his little piggy heart of hearts, he wishes he were all these things. And I don't doubt that many progressives sincerely believe he is all these things. My take is a little different.

Karl Rove is a mere political strategist. His bag of tricks is as small as his wizened scrotum, and just like that portion of his pigment-free, endomorphic anatomy, it contains only two things.

Fear and smear.

Enough to get the job done, pretty much. With the massive enabling power of the conservative media machinery grinding out screeching symphonies of sycophancy and simpering pseudo-patriotic propaganda twenty-four hours a day, with the pussy-footing and hamfisted miscalculation of elected Democrats (not all, but most) who can't distinguish between "repose" and "oppose", with a huge proportion of the populace still so spooked by September 11 it is willing to have its Constitutional rights pissed on, Rove's handiwork has been so easy to accomplish that any mean-spirited 12-year old could have achieved exactly the same result.

America has spent fifty years lurching around with its right foot caught in a bucket. If you listen closely, the clang-clang-clang of that bucket bumping along the pavement of our "bridge to the 21st Century" sounds like words. Listen: "support the troops", "fight them there so we don't have to fight them here", "they hate us for our freedoms", "love it or leave it", "liberals cut and run", "Heartland", "Homeland", "Democrats are out of touch with mainstream American values", "get a haircut", "my country, right or wrong".

Oh, one more thing to add to the unfortunate genital metaphor above: dangling like a purple dolphin just above his little bag of tricks is the organ with which Rove - like so many similarly-endowed Republican strategists before him - has repeatedly screwed the body politic in every available orifice: cheating.

Minority voter disenfranchisement. Gerrymandered districts. Voting machine misallocation. Phone jamming. Ballot switching. Vote counting manipulation. And, if all else fails, drag an election through the courts, higher and higher until finally, Justices Pubic-Hair and Vaffanculo can tip the balance. Presto: Chauncey Gardiner is now the president. It's mourning in America.

Karl Rove's indictment - or lack thereof - never mattered a whit in the great scheme of things. His continued presence - or lack thereof - doesn't change the political calculus this November one iota.

Any Democratic candidate this year should already know that "fear, smear and cheat" will be the tactics of their Republican opponent. Any Democratic candidate will face the usual hot-button rhetoric, the usual shameless distortion of the truth, the usual Orwellian lexicon, the usual transparent appeals to fear, xenophobia and American exceptionalism. Same old same old. Any Democratic voter should know this too.

This will be so whether Rove is kitted out with an orange jumpsuit or whether his pudge is swaddled in the usual Armani. This will be so if the wrath of God descends on him tomorrow and casts him into the bowels of Hell where he can party at the feet of the Devil with Strom Thurmond and Richard Nixon.

Rove didn't invent the recipe for this little excrement soufflé. It's a traditional Republican dish, to which he added a little Tex-Mex spicing. Let's just say he's a decent cook, but he ain't no master chef.

In short, Karl Christian Rove is irrelevant. This is my first and last comment on him.

There's work to be done taking this country back. See y'all later.

[militaryWife]

1. I agree completely...evil, yes, genius, no. n/t

well said

[JeffR]

2. Thank you, mW

"evil, yes, genius, no" sums it up better and much more economically than I did.

:patriot:

[AndyTiedye]

3. What Is Different is NSA Blackmail and Diebold

It isn't that Karl Rove is any kind of genius. This regime has seized
powers that Congress quite rightly forbid any executive from having,
and Karl Rove gets to exercise those powers.

NSA blackmail keeps the pols in DC AND the media in line


While Diebold takes care of the elections

[JeffR]

4. It's all exploitation all the time

At the end of the day, it's all button-pushing. It's simply a question of whether the buttons are pushed efficiently (Bush II) or clumsily (Bush I).

The NSA, the Patriot Act, free speech zones, etc. were easily unleashed in a climate where fear, fear, fear is all Americans get to hear. Fear has been the means by which the whole country has been blackmailed into ignoring, countenancing or even cheering for things that the Framers of the Constitution thought they ridding the nation of.

As to Diebold & their ilk, if they went under tomorrow, the panoply of electoral dirty tricks mentioned in my OP would still be effective enough to turn elections. They've worked in the past, after all.

And one other item I didn't touch on earlier: October Surprises. Nixon, Reagan and W. have all used them.

Maybe a musical metaphor works best: The Right has no hesitation about recycling their Greatest Hits every couple of years when they have to cut a new album. After all, they only know three chords...

[AndyTiedye]

15. They have crossed the Rubicon, in the dead of night so Nobody Knew

The NSA, the Patriot Act, free speech zones, etc. were easily unleashed in a climate where fear, fear, fear is all Americans get to hear.

Yet even in the climate of pervasive fear that was whipped up after 9/11, Congress expressly forbid the "Total Information Awareness" program.
There wasn't even any partisan division on the issue. Everyone in Congress knew what would happen if TIA was allowed to proceed.
The administration pretended to comply. They repeatedly asserted that the NSA was complying with FISA even as they continued to violate that law.

Even the Patriot Act did not allow what the NSA was doing. They could never have gotten permission to do that.

Yet they seem to be on the verge of getting it NOW, when their polls are in the tank and overall level of fear is much lower than right after 9/11.
Why do you suppose that is?

It is because they already HAVE enough on all of the Repubs in Congress and many of the Dems to blackmail them into submission.
What other reason could there be?

[lonestarnot]

12. Fuck that he's not irrelevant until I say so!

:evilgrin:

[NanceGreggs]

5. As much I want to see the little shit go out in leg-irons ...

... in the great scheme of things, he's been made to seem more important than he really is.

The GOP Band will play on, with or without the Big Tubby Tuba.

As for being perceived as a political genius, one can only question the genius of getting your Boy down into the 28%-ratings range and managing to keep him there for as long as he has ...

[JeffR]

6. But the band would miss the sturdy bottom he brings to the tune

So to speak. I'd be happier if his sturdy bottom was playing wind scales in a prison cell.

But the fact that he's walking free doesn't change a damned thing.

[robbedvoter]

7. Do you really think elections in November will be decided by voters?

I am not one to lionize the little prick, but he is relevant in this:

[JeffR]

9. Where did I say that?

Read the OP re: election theft.

Of course he's relevant to it, but Pauly Shore would be relevant to it if he were Bush's main political advisor.

Even if I were to assume that stealing an election is the whole-cloth invention of Rove, and I don't, do you really think the GOP doesn't have the bench strength to engage in whatever chicanery they want? Fat Karl could fall down a well, assuming he could fit into the opening, and the same tactics would be used.

As I've stated, Rove's bag of tricks is a small one, and it's nothing we haven't seen for years before he crawled up out of some Texas swamp.

ON EDIT: Reply #8 sums this up nicely, I think.

[H2O Man]

17. Right.

If elections are stolen, it is because of a network of people who have control of the computers that count the votes. Those people may be influenced by Rove, but they and their actions are distinct from him.

During the Revolutionary War, the colonists began to connect all of the violence that took place in the "border wars" with Indian people to a Mohawk leader named Joseph Brant. Cherry Valley, Wyoming, Unadilla .... all of the violence in these "western front" communities was blamed on "Brant." The tendency to do this continued when there was violence on the "western front" .... Geronimo being an example.

I do not intend to compare Rove to Brant or Geronimo, who were great men. Rather, it is the tendency of others to attribute everything to one individual that is of interest.

The OP is a very important statement. Karl Rove is not a genius, nor is he a tough guy. He is an opportunist, and a vile, cowardly snake.

[JeffR]

18. Sorry for the slow response, H2O Man

Thanks for your thoughts. Your Brant example is very instructive, IMO, and strangely similar to all the chatter about the significance of Zarqawi's death.

Rove and others make convenient poster boys for what we're up against, but we get distracted from this war of many fronts by investing one sleazy character - even one as powerful as Rove - with this kind of significance.

What's too often forgotten about election theft is the range of interests - each one of them inimical to the public interest - who have a stake in the vote totals going the way they want them to. First and foremost, of course, is Bushco, but there are plenty of others. Lots of heads on this hydra.

[stepnw1f]

8. You Don't Have to Be a Genius

to be a major sociopathic head case willing to break laws for political purposes. Any thug out there is willing.

[Gregorian]

10. Bravo!

Yep. The people have the power. But enough people like winning more than playing by the rules. So it's the other people we're counting on. Let's hope we have a majority.


I love your style. Rove would be proud. I guess that isn't much of a compliment. You know what I mean. He's a genius in his own way.

[JeffR]

11. Thanks, Gregorian

I figure if public discourse has been reduced to pure invective by Rove and his party, I'm quite willing to discuss them in their own language. It's probably the best way to do it these days. Sadly enough.

[smokey nj]

13. Bully does not equal Genius.......

The kid who punched you in the mouth and stole your lunch money probably wasn't on the college track.

[JeffR]

14. But there were no doubt some kids who said the bully was

The most powerful force in the school.

Thanks, smokey nj, well said.

[Skittles]

16. I've said it a dozen times

Karl Rove's 'genius' is that he is able to do things that would turn a decent person's stomach...he is nothing but a common THUG