You haven't seen a nauseating paean to Karl Rove until you've seen Fred Barnes' nauseating paean to Karl Rove. I don't recommend reading that in its entirety; it's akin to eating a stick of butter rolled in saccharine. Among the cloying highlights:
Rove is the greatest political mind of his generation and probably of any generation. He not only is a breathtakingly smart strategist but also a clever tactician. He knows history, understands the moods of the public, and is a visionary on matters of public policy. (emphasis added)
Can you even imagine writing such horseshit for a living? I think it's safe to say that Fred wrote this one with only one hand on the keyboard. If you catch my drift. And I think you do. This is one of those columns that calls to mind Steve Albini and his "Three pandering sluts" rant: I wonder how Fred Barnes will feel if he clips this piece, puts it in a time capsule, and opens it in 10 years. His sentiments might have made sense as a knee-jerk emotional reaction immediately after Rove's resignation, but once he's done rubbing one out I wonder how proud he will be of what he's written here.
It's an awful lot like flogging a dead horse to point out how idiotic the "Rove is a Genius" trope is when viewed through the lens of reality. What Barnes called the greatest political mind "of any generation" was the "architect" of getting a President re-elected by the skin of his teeth as a wartime incumbent. Wow. I mean, what are the odds? Believe it or not, the historical odds were….100%. Nixon '72. FDR. Wilson 1916. Lincoln 1864. Incumbent presidents simply don't lose elections during wartime. Yet the "brilliant" architect Rove managed the herculean feat of getting one such president re-elected over a horrendous challenger by 1% of the popular vote. Wow. Amazing. True, history would suggest that he should have won by 15%. But the reality-based community misses the point by focusing on such irrelevant "facts."
And how about that "permanent Republican majority" that lasted all of two years? Actually, Karl, we call what happened in 2004 the coattail effect, and it's been identified and studied in political science since approximately the dawn of time. The GOP gained three fucking seats in the House in 2004. Yet the media unhinged its jaw like a snake to swallow more and more of the Ain't Rove a Genius propaganda shoveled toward it. In other words, what happened in 2004 was exactly what 200 years of history would predict. The GOP could have used a rock or an incontinent bear as a strategist and gotten the exact same result.
Let's be clear: Karl Rove is a myopic bag of fluid with a 5th-grade understanding of the political world. Calling him a genius based on what happened in 2004 is akin to applauding a shaman for having succeeded in making the sun rise. His constant pandering to the lowest common denominator and his ridiculous overestimation of the number of far-right religious nutcases in the electorate has set his party back years. If he's a genius, he's a genius along the lines of Charles Keating, Bill Buckner or FEMA in New Orleans. That is, he's noteworthy only for his seemingly preternatural ability to fail spectacularly.
Joe Parrot says:
Ed,
Thank you for another classic angry liberal rant. It is amazing how your emotions dominate your opinions and even causing you to try and mislead your readers.
In your "Boy Genuis" entry you want to quote Barnes second paragraph to support your position but you conveniently dropped his last sentence in that paragraph that reads "But he is not a magician". Your readers hopefully will take the time to read the artical and not rely solely on your misrepresentation of the artical.
Karl Rove is a good political stratigist. He helped Bush win in Texas twice and the win the Presidency twice. Impressive. Your comment that a rock could have gotten Bush reelected in 04 because he was a war president is cute but again your supporting facts are weak. You fail to inform your readers that being a war president did not help Truman in 1952 When he lost the New Hampshire primary and dropped out of the race during the Korean War or that Johnson declined the nomination to run for reelection during his war presidency leading to Nixon's wins that you do reference.
The reason you do not like Rove is simple. He was not on your side and he wins.
Ed says:
Trust me, I choked my way through the entire article. Pardon me for not taking the "He is not a magician" quote seriously two sentences after Barnes called him the greatest political mind in the history of the world.
I'm glad you're impressed that Karl Rove "masterminded" a Republican winning a statewide election in Texas. Really, what are the odds? The 2000 election was a monument to ineptitude on both sides and, delude yourself all you want, but the odds were overwhelmingly on Bush's side in 2004.
Any dime-store political hack in DC could have "masterminded" the Bush victories you've cited. If your point is that Karl Rove is as good as any of them, I will concede that. Keep telling yourself that I don't like him because "he wins." The stunning brilliance of his "all we need to do is play to Evangelical nutjobs and say '9/11' every 5 seconds" strategy was on full display in 2006, and I hope to god the right sticks to it again in 2008.
Chris says:
I think fear mongering in '04 and Scalia in '00 had a lot more to do with GWB victories than Karl Rove.
And, at the end of the day, GWB will be a gift to the Democratic Party in the same way Herbert Hoover was. So, in a really twisted way, thanks!
Ed also makes a wonderful point about '06. Rove and the Republicans whipped out the same BS they did during the '04 election and it didn't work out very well. I also hope they continue this strategy in '08.
J. Dryden says:
One could argue that Rove isn't a genius–let's save that word for the Louis Howes of the world, huh?–so much as someone who, like McCarthy and Nixon, legitimately, even shrewdly recognized the value of mining the rich vein of America's worst impulses, and how pandering to those impulses and making people feel *good* about giving into them–appealing to the consciences of voters by allowing them to turn vices into virtues–would help him win elections.
Give him credit, too, for recognizing the fatal flaw of the media: its moronically undeveloped sense of giving 'fair play' to both sides of an issue, regardless of how lunatic one side might be. (All he had to do was dig up a few guys who weren't there but had some bad things to say about Kerry's war service, and presto-changeo, it's 'an issue that, in all fairness, we must explore,' nudging that idiotic 2% of voters over to Dubya's side of the fence.)
But really, that's *all* Rove can do: win elections against candidates who flail helplessly against an opponent who fights dirty. Beyond that, what's he got? His policies are complete and utter disasters; what kind of 'genius' proposes that his 'victorious' candidate take his 'political capital' and spend it on Social Security Reform–one of the few issues guaranteed to sour relations with Congressional members of his own party, and many of the older conversative voting blocs who supported him? If that's the mark of genius, then Pickett's Charge was Lee's finest hour.
So, no, Joe Parrot, it's not because Rove 'wins' that many of us detest him; it's that, having won, he makes horribly stupid policy decisions that hurt the country as a whole and–here's the joke–HIS OWN PARTY IN PARTICULAR. If anyone should hate Rove, it should be *you*, really…
Jeremy says:
Joe posted here from his work e-mail address….*snickers*….could think of all kinds of fun things to do with that info
Chris says:
And, by the way Joe, primaries didn't exactly matter before the reform in 1972. Estes Kefauver won 12 of the 15 primaries in 1952, and he still didn't win the Democratic nomination. Also, Hubert Humphrey, the VP of LBJ (!), almost beat Nixon in '68. Humprey had quite a surge towards the end of the election, and might have won if he had another week or two.
Both Truman and LBJ decided not to run; they weren't denied or lost anything. And, the rate of presidential incumbents taking the nomination, when they choose to, is practically 100%. Hell, even Gerald Ford was renominated over Reagan in '76.
Perhaps a little bit more than a Rush Limbaugh fact check would have brought this to light. But, then again, since when have Conservatives cared about fact or common sense?!?