Letters to the Editor
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What's reasonable about this?
"Matthews' reasonable verdict on the whole matter, according to Isikoff and Corn, was that the Wilsons 'were trying to screw the White House so the White House was going to screw them back'."
It's not reasonable to describe Joe Wilson's revelations about the yellowcake hoax as "trying to screw the White House". It's cynical, amoral, and arguably politically biased.
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Lackeying indeed.
YES, but......
If it was KARK 'MUSLIM' ROVE, perhaps the G Dubber of B would have used different words at his Elementery School Hideout in Florda on September 11, 2001.
Neoconned and Roveing on to a New American Century;
COWARDS in the LEAD!
or is this merely
Georges' new REPUBLICAN GUARD
with their idea of TRUTH, JUSTICE, and LIBERTY
THEIR 'AMERICAN WAY'?
NOT IN MY NAME!
Sub sole sub umbra virens,
2,648 and counting.
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Rove's no genius
He fell back on the authoritarian standards: Lies, fear and hate. The Right has spent decades building a lie machine out of talk radio and Fox News. After that, lie about your intentions and push fear and hate to those prone to it and presto! Power for Power's sake is yours. These people are still the Stalinists they used to be, they use all the same tactics. Why do you think the republican color is Red now?
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Hey Franksa
"Soulless thug" is possibly the best description I've heard of Rove. Kudos! And I think the rest of your comments capture him well, too. Rove is less craft, more lowest-common-denominator than we all originally thought.
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More Luck than brains
I’ve never bought into the idea that Rove is some kind of political “genius”. 9/11 saved Rove in the same way it saved his master. Bush was on his way to being a failed one term president, appointed to office after a controversial election. 9/11 obviously changed that and Bush and Rove benefited from it. So far Rove has profited by other’s mistakes, the luck of disaster and the cooperation of a main stream media that was happy to fixate on Gore’s missteps and Kerry’s hair while wrinkling its collective nose at any hint of trouble in Bush’s corner. Sure Rove took an intellectual nonentity and made him president, but that has to be weighed against that cipher’s last name and the fact that he was a sitting governor of a large state, with a fairly short political history that had already been thoroughly rinsed clean. The fact that Rove had a candidate two years before the 2004 election with approval ratings in the mid 90s and still managed to eek out a win under dubious circumstances and only after deploying gay baiting and the swift boaters, shouldn’t add much luster to his reputation. Sadly I think the GOP will retain control of both houses of Congress this fall, if barely and Rove will be the “genius” again, but I think it will have been Tom Delay and his jiggering of the Texas Congressional districts rather than some master strategy from turd blossom that allows Bush to leave office in 2008 on his own terms. More’s the pitty.
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Lies only get you so far
Rove may be very adept at shaping potent messages that take full advantage of current circumstances, but lies only get you so far. How long can the Republican's say whatever is required to gain power and then once they have that power ignore what they said and then preceed to govern according to a completely different set of unadvertised priorites? The answer appears to be, not much longer. In the end, Rove's brillance - real or imagined - can not overcome the fact that the vast majority of American's are not interested in the real agenda of the Republican party and the unpalatable results of their stewardship are being clearer every day.
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Rove showed he was lacking in 2000
I've known Rove was capable of serious blunders since 2000. In the final weekend before the 2000 election, the Bush people had polling that indicated that California might be "in play," so Bush went out and campaigned in California, hoping to create a "mandate" and a "landslide." He of course lost that state by a large margin. If he had campaigned in Florida, which their polling showed was shaky for them, he might have won the state cleanly, instead of stealing it with the assistance of the Supreme Court. Rove was a moron for failing to nail down Florida, and taking a huge, pointless risk in California.
He's made a lot of mistakes since then, but if anyone still has any faith in his supposed mastermind status, they should look at how well the Terri Schiavo case worked out for the Republicans.
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Bush's Brain
I can now go to my grave with a happy heart. Someone in the media - although Salon isn’t really a part of the MSM - has finally pointed out that Rove isn’t a brilliant political strategist, just an amoral opportunist. Getting up in front of an all-white group of Southerners, most of whom never went past high school and most of whom cannot read or write beyond a sixth-grade level - and yelling NiggerNiggerNiggerPraiseJesus!!! and repeating it until the audience is foaming at the mouth isn’t political brilliance - just unethical and immoral conduct.
Several years ago, the New Yorker magazine ran a profile of Rove. (I think it was by Nicholas Lemann, but don’t hold me to it.) I suggest that Salon readers find the article and read it. It explains a lot. Rove was so damaged by his childhood and his parents. He has such low self-image, and I think that he is deeply ashamed that he never finished college, and deeply embarrassed that his family life was so barren and dysfunctional. Rove is one of those guys who came from the wrong side of the tracks, was physically unattractive and couldn’t gain entry to the upper crust except by doing their dirty work for them. In case you’ve forgotten Rove’s dirty work in South Carolina, after Bush lost the New Hampshire primary to McCain, white voters in South Carolina received phone calls telling them - among other things - that McCain had a black daughter. Actually, they said: “Did you know that John McCain has a nigger daughter?” - and that McCain had contracted a venereal disease from a black prostitute. McCain, who had been riding high and was on his way to securing the GOP nomination, sank like a stone. Rove likes to think he’s one of them - ie, the upper crust. He’s not. One day the GOP will drop him like a used tissue. It wouldn’t surprise me if he committed suicide the way his mother did.
I was down south this past weekend, visiting the living and the dead. I literally kissed my adopted northern ground upon my return.