Be Very, Very Afraid of Karl Rove

[FreedomFry]

This is also on the DU Op-Ed page, but in case you missed it, Neal Gabler's "Karl Rove: America's Mullah" in today's Los Angeles Times Opinion section should not be missed.

Why do conservatives behave like rabid underdogs, even after "winning" the 2000 election? Why did Bush promise to be a "uniter," then proceed to divide our country as never before? How does the administration get away with telling outrageous lies? Neal Gabler neatly, succinctly -- and terrifyingly -- lays it all out. The Times requires registering and logging in, but if only for this one article, it's worth the extra time and effort.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-op-gabler24oct24,0,1987150.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions

Here are several excerpts:

<snip>
Rovism is not simply a function of Rove the political conniver sitting in the counsels of power and making decisions, though he does. No recent presidency has put policy in the service of politics as has Bush's. Because tactics can change institutions, Rovism is much more. It is a philosophy and practice of governing that pervades the administration and even extends to the Republican-controlled Congress. As Robert Berdahl, chancellor of UC
Berkeley, has said of Bush's foreign policy, a subset of Rovism, it constitutes a fundamental change in "the fabric of constitutional government as we have known it in this country."

<snip>

Bush entered office promising to be a "uniter, not a divider." But Rovism is not about uniting. What Rove quickly grasped is that it's easier and more efficacious to exploit the cultural and social divide than to look for common ground. No recent administration has as eagerly played wedge issues - gay marriage, abortion, stem cell research, faith-based initiatives - to keep the nation roiling, in the pure Rovian belief that the president's conservative supporters will always be angrier and more energized than his opponents. Division, then, is not a side effect of policy; in Rovism, it is the purpose of policy.

<snip>

Boiled down, Rovism is government by jihadis in the grip of unshakable self-righteousness -- ironically the force the administration says it is fighting. It imposes rather than proposes. Rovism surreptitiously and profoundly changes our form of government, a government that has been, since its founding by children of the Enlightenment, open, accommodating, moderate and generally reasonable. The idea of the United States as an ironfisted theocracy is terrifying, and it should give everyone pause. This time, it's not
about policy. This time, for the first time, it's about the nature of American government.

[snowbear]

1. Screw Rove...

He'll be working at Walmart in two months...

[FreedomFry]

6. I agree, but we have to be more vigilant than that.

Karl Rove and his ilk aren't going away any more than Newt Gingrich went away in the late '90s. They lurk. They scheme. They catch us unawares and run roughshod over us when we least expect it. We can't let that happen anymore. We can take nothing for granted.

[VOX]

2. Excellent piece on KKKarl...

Will be glad to scrape "Turdblossom" off of the collective shoe come November 2.

Thanks for posting! :kick:

[Bluebear]

3. America's Mullah, what a great title. Or as * would say MOOLAH

[calmblueocean]

4. Except Rove's schemes have backfired

They've united and energized the Democratic party far more than his own base. Non fundamentalist Republicans and traditional conservatives are defecting from Bush or staying home. Democrats are pulling their grandmothers to the polls with them.

Rove is an idiot. This election will be the final proof.

[mikehiggins]

12. Not the final proof by any measure

This will only be a victory in a war that has been going on far longer than the "war on terra", starting way back when Bill Buckley first put "God and Man at Yale" on the Times bestseller list.

This IS the cultural war the neocons and others have tried to use for their own benefit and kicking Rove and Bush out of the White House will only give it a little pause because few people really seem able to grasp what is going on, and those few are issued tin-foil hats whenever they speak up.

Wow! What a run-on sentence.

Anyway, there is a sad convention among liberals and others that everyone thinks this democracy thing is a good idea. To quote Porgy and Bess "tain't neccessarily so". Now that we have Afghanistan and other places to model government on, the Bible thumpers would be more than happy to have the kind of government Robert Heinlein wrote about years ago, one where one school of morality held sway over all.

There's no guarantee, of course, that the Rick Sanatoriums and people like that will prevail, of course, but that movement has to be STOPPED, not negotiated with or temporised with. STOPPED.

Just pray to whatever constitutes your higher power that none of the SCOTUS folks quits right after the elections, because the GOPuke Senate will ram through whoever BushCo nominates, even if they have to hold the vote at three in the morning. This time its for all the marbles.

And we still have to win this election in the first place.

[BeFree]

16. The 'Movement' must be CRUSHED

That's an interesting scenario on the Supremes, Mike, hope our four Supremes are in good health. The other five? A dime a dozen.

People need to realize what's happening -- There is a movement, even a conspiracy, to rule America by total crookedness, without a dollars worth of democracy.

I call it Reaganism -- a disease infecting far too many citizens. The symptoms are: Believing in the utter lies, cussing folks who have a different idea of government, and being ruled by fear.

Even after Kerry is elected, our battle to take back America has to carry on.

First battle? The media. We took a bite out of Sinclair, eh?

[951]

5. HAHAHAAH!

*ahem* FreedomFry are you karl Rove by chance?

[FreedomFry]

7. No way, 951.

I'm a Yellow-Dog Democrat and a contributor to DU who unfortunately happens to be a newbie. :)

[951]

10. No worries

I'm just joking around welcome to DU! :party: :toast:

[Lilli]

8. I've come to the conclusion that Rove himself is a

one note song. He's used the same tactics time after time and we've finally gotten wise. Is he ruthless? Yep. An evil genius? Na.

Between people like Jack Van Impe (and the rest of the Armageddons-A-Comin! crew) working Bush up into thinking he's got a mandate from God, and Rove's LIE AS LOUDLY AS YOU CAN and people will listen tactics, they've had a good run.

But when your own side starts looking at you with a WTF? look on their face you've overplayed your hand.

I could be wrong....but the new "scary" wolfie ad sort of convinced me that Rove isnt the boogeyman at all.

[Shopaholic]

9. There's a great article about Rovian tactics in this month's

Vanity Fair (November issue with Johnny Depp on the cover). It recounts what happened in South Carolina to McCain in the 2000 primary. It's nasty, nasty stuff. Rove is described by one Republican party insider as being the nastiest son-of-a-bitch he's ever known.

[Cha]

13. We could have told him

that!

[Cha]

11. rove and his Machiavellian philosophy

is going to learn the hard way that we want a uniter NOT a DIVIDER!

We're not interested in people of BAD FAITH!

[sandnsea]

14. It's not complicated

I don't know why they don't call it for what it is, Machiavelli. Except these guys even clutz up Machiavelli, Mayberry Mafia is more accurate.

[acmavm]

15. The only thing KKKarl ever had going for him is the ability to dream up

the most immoral and ugly lies ever to sully a human brain and to be such a moral bankrupt that he'd libel people with those lies.

Like someone else said, he's a one-trick pony. Times up KKKarl, and since your lack of character is known world wide, wonder where you'll end up working next. No self-respecting human being would touch you with the proverbial ten foot pole. That's why you're working for bush*.

[BootinUp]

17. I love that this article is in a major paper

like the LA Times. Would have been nice to see this a couple months ago instead of one week before the election though.

As to the main point, I agree with how the author sees the Bush admin. Quite dangerous to our democracy. Another 4 years would be very bad.

[NightOwwl]

18. We may joke about Rove not being all that much,

but I don't think the people whose lives he destroyed will ever underestimate him. He doesn't give a shit about anything but being able to say "I won, you lost", and nothing has changed.

He's a heartless bastard, and I hope someday he has the "opportunity" to experience the hell he's put others through.

[MagickMuffin]

19. Rove Quote

'We will fuck him. Do you hear me? We will fuck him. We will ruin him. Like no one has ever fucked him!'

Overheard by Ron Suskind, while waiting on an interview with Rove.

[rullery]

20. Karl Rove may well face a Congressional investigation.

Assuming that we gain a majority in the Senate as well as electing
John Kerry as President, there will be hearings. I imagine that Rove, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz may all have to answer for their sins against America. When all is revealed, even the Fundies will realize how badly they have been misled by this gang of thugs.