First of all, I thought Ciccina was commenting on the resignation of Karl Rove in her earlier post, not rubbing our faces in your vacation snaps! I see your sunset over Stromboli, and raise you a day on the beach in Ipanema!
Now, back to the topic at hand: Karl Rove. Turd Blossom. Author of Evil. He's resigned, to "spend more time with his family." Um...his boy's in college now. I think the time to correct misdeeds is over. But gosh, is it perhaps harder to avoid a congressional subpoena in the middle of Texas than suburban DC? Or will he now be able to manipulate more elections and make more money doing it in the private sector?
Only the shadow knows. Or perhaps my Fierce and Fair Fellow Bloggeresses...
Monday, August 13
:: Happy Trails to Turd Blossom
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2 comments:
I read earlier today that it could be ballooning scandals - that he's preemptively falling on his sword to save Bush the embarrassment. But unless what's coming is huge (and let's face it, what does "huge" mean in a political environment where the president can lie his way into a war and nothing happens) I don't buy it.
There's always the possibility he is sick (physically) - never wise to count that out.
I imagine he thinks he is neutralizing himself as a political issue, betting that if he isn't in the limelight he will no longer be newsworthy. When Democrats attack the Bush-Rove legacy, reporters will yawn because Rove will be yesterday's news. Its stupid, but then the Washington press corps will do anything so long as its stupid.
Or, he's moving onto Thompson's team, albeit sub rosa. Some of these guys really don't know how to let go and Rove may well be one of them.
Last, there's always a chance that a crisis has emerged on his home world and his alien leaders have called him back.
C, I pick C.
So I just finished reading Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell which I highly recommend. Vowell goes off on a tangent about Marcus Hanna, the political genius behind McKinley’s successful presidential election in 1897. Stick with me this is going somewhere. This got me thinking about “famous political consultants.” Or the fact that there is no such thing. I have always admired Rove’s crafty genius. After all he got a monkey elected – twice. But I worry that that people (meaning the Democratic Party) will take away the wrong message from Rove’s success and think that it is Bush’s policies that the Democrats should emulate rather than Rove’s tactics. It has not helped that the press has dubbed Mark Penn this cycle’s Karl Rove. Double yuck. Is it because Penn was involved in many losing campaigns before he got involved in the big winning one, which will cause everyone to forget all the losses before and lay credit at the feet of one man when thousands toiled to make it happen. Or is because Penn is the genius (I say with as much derision has I can convey in writing) behind the DLC and the Democratic Party’s move to the center on just about every progressive issue I care about. Or is it that Penn is the only political consultant the press knows and they are too lazy to learn the names of the Republican ones. Or is it that there really is no Republican to succeed him?
Either way the idea that Rove may have some lasting legacy worries me. Not keep-me-up-at-night worry, but what-is-this-country-thinking worry.
Then I remember that most folks in politics have the memory of goldfish. Political consultants do not have legacies. Marcus Hanna who?
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