Karl Rove must have been teased and beat up a lot as a child. He has nothing but sneaky anti-social behavior. I didn't have to read this to come to that conclusion.

He is one great rapper though!

Misanthrop.

Karl Rove may have taken "dirty tricks" to a new level. But he was a political operative, and winning was what he was hired to do. He wasn't hired to be a statesman. Most of his tactics were just a more extreme version of what both parties have done for years.

I don't think Rove was the real problem. The problem was what was behind him - the politicians who were happy to fall in line, the press that repeated his lies and innuendos without any investigation or criticism, the Democrats (in and out of office) who were too afraid of being called "un-American" to fight for the truth, and the voters who didn't bother looking further than slogans of "patriotic good... liberal bad".

Rove is just a symptom. The underlying disease goes deeper.

Karl Rove , you say, is not a Hitler. He would have been if he could have. His legacy is the attempted destruction of our democracy and constitution. His parents must be so ashamed; or should be.

Bsgroup:

Karl Rove's mother did not live to witness her son's rise to political eminence. She committed suicide in 1981 when Rove was about 31 years old. I've often wondered how that affected him.

The danger of a Dick Cheney is the danger of the ideologue: he will do anything, anything, for his principles. The ends justify the means. And the horror becomes all the worse when not only are the means horrific--torture, lies, secrecy, the trampling of laws and the Constitution itself--but the goal itself is awful: the endless expansion of Executive power.

But in a way, Karl Rove represents a scarier vein of danger. Dick Cheney, now that his goal is unmasked, is predictable. We know what drives him. We know what his goal is. We know towards what he works. Although they are awful, he does have principles.

Karl Rove has no principles. He believes in nothing. He has no moral guideposts, he has no overarching philosophy. He believes only in "winning" for "his side," no matter who "his side" is. He is morally bankrupt. He feels no guilt, for he is not a hypocrite; he takes no moral stances, and lives by none. He gives the benefit of his abilities, his intellect, and his cunning to whomever it seems expedient to do so for no reason other than his desire "to win." And thus he attacks decorated veterans for being cowards, equates criticism with treason, and denies the immorality of whisper campaigns of lies against opponents. Winning is not just everything; it truly is "the only thing."

So which is the more frightening type of man? It is to our nation's sorrow that both types have been running our country for the last six and a half years.

The constant demonization of anyone who questioned the policies of the Bush administration, especially with regard to the war in Iraq and the shredding of the Constitution in the pursuit of "terrorists", as traitorous, has been perhaps the most frustrating of the many frustrating developments of the last seven years. But just about as frustrating is the fact that the liberals/Democrats who have been the victims of these attacks never seemed to find an effective voice to counter them.

I take a back seat to no one in my conempt for Rove and his anti-democratic tactics. But comparing his manipulations to those of the Nazis is precisely the sort of hyperbole that the left finds so offensive when it is engaged in by the right. If we want to do more than preach to the choir, we need to lay off the cheap rhetoric (however good it feels).

As much as I agree that Rove is a despicable person, we can't forget that the American public refuses to think beyond the sound bytes that are fed to them. How could anyone possibly question McLelland's principles? This may require some reading and critical thinking, but that is not beyond the grasp of an average American citizen--or is it?

The Democrats are entirely complicit--from Al Gore to the Clintons (with Kerry in between) to the current members of congress. The illusion of the two party system is what keeps the American public distracted and divided while policies harmful to the American people continue to roll out. Yes Karl Rove was successful; but as someone earlier wrote, we have to look at what was behind him.

Excuse me, I meant Cleland.

Karl Rove's cardinal sin was to expose liberal Democrats for who they are: weak on terror, anti-American weasels.

We can denounce Karl Rove all we want, but he did his job for the short term, which is win elections.

I'd hazard to say that the political operatives of both the left and right have about as much responsibility for their "talking points," coded wordings, and misleading/lying rhetorical constructions as does a writer or poet. The responsibility lies with shallow politicians who went along with the lies and let the more or less mercenary political operatives lead the country.

In other words, we can denounce a rapper for saying something about our culture we don't like, but said rapper has found a "soft spot," so to speak. An utterance is only as offensive as the truth it describes. What offends is the degree to which people go along with the sentiment.

Interpreted in this manner, Karl Rove was a genius at capitalizing on the fear, paranoia, and tolerance for violence already inherent in our current American cultural moment.

So, does the artist reflect life, or does life reflect on the artist?

This is no defense of Karl Rove as "an artist," but it should be said that Karl Rove didn't create the fearful American cultural milieu that we currently suffer in. We may blame Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Rove for disastrous wars, the torture and killing of innocents, the mincing of our Constitution, and the "sunset" of the rule of law. More scary to me is the how easily the American public has allowed itself to be manipulated into countenancing evil -- yes, evil -- committed in our name.

While the GOP is in dire straits, the same polling indicates the American public has become radicalized. Many, many people would support torture without limit, endless occupation in the Middle East, and nuclear war on our "enemies." The Iraq War, after all, is a pre-emptive, unjustifiable, immoral war.

No political genius or Architect could have made those things happen from scratch. Karl Rove is more like a weather vane than a Great Man who changed American Sentiment and History. His machinations have unearthed the ignoble soul of America that exists alongside its noble soul.