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The resignation of Karl Rove has provided a field day for progressive and Democratic bloggers. For all of us it produces yet another piece of evidence the Bush administration is unraveling. After all, the biggest rat of all has left the sinking ship.
As readers have come to expect, this blog takes a contrarian position about Rove. Certainly, Rove leaves a fistful of Congressional summons behind him as well as still unanswered questions about his role in the 2000 Miami Rent-a-Riot. You’ve probably forgotten the Riot by now but it was the only deliberate attempt in our history to try to change an election by using force.
Meanwhile, Rove’s departure leaves Dick Cheney as the Fuehrer of this misguided Reich. In fact I will go further and speculate Cheney helped to push Rove out the door. It all reminds me of one of those medieval dramas where the evil Machiavellian bumps off his rivals one by one.
In Cheney’s twisted mind there was probably little doubt Rove had become a liability and an obstacle. As outlined in the newest Atlantic by Joshua Green, the Bush Administration divided responsibilities between Cheney as foreign policy advisor and Rove as the chief architect of domestic policy. If Rove had only done a decent job with his half, Cheney must be saying, Iraq would not be such a big deal.
If Cheney did ease Rove out the door, the fact that George Bush would cooperate in the sacking of his friend the architect suggests how unhinged this administration has become. The look on the faces of both Bush and Rove as Rove delivered his farewell speech with all the rhetorical grace of his chief inspiration, William McKinley, suggested this was not a willing departure. “I’m leaving to spend more time with my family,” is the kind of language CEOs use when they have received a no-confidence vote from their board.
With Cheney now in full control of Pinocchio’s strings, God only knows what dances the president will be doing in the coming months. No doubt one of them will be a danse macabre, not unlike that done by medieval victims of the plague. For there is an uncontrollable illness raging in the White House that appears to infect all and have no cure. Expect Condi Rice to be the next one to succumb. Her desires to return to her piano have become more open with each day.
Cheney now has achieved his dream: total control of the executive branch of the United States government. His take-no-prisoners mentality makes Rove look like a mere schoolboy. Rove always had a pragmatic streak that allowed him to create alliances of convenience when needed. Cheney sees the world in Manichean terms–light against darkness.
I have always felt Rove was overrated. He was a bit like Oz–a characterization Green uses, this dome-headed, bespeckled man pulling levers and scaring his rivals the way Oz does Dorothy and her companions. Rove’s main contribution to changing the practice of American politics grew from his background as a direct mail marketer. He pioneered the use of massive databases coupled with cluster analysis and instantaneous communication with the troops. In this he is the latest in a long line going back to figures like Roscoe Conkling and Mark Hanna, political bosses who could summon their armies with the snap of a finger.
In 2006, the Democratic Party finally began closing the voter technology gap. Within the Party Howard Dean played a major role, but more important were the efforts of groups like America Votes and Wellstone Action. They finally gave the Democrats the equivalent of Rove’s technology and his grassroots network.
With the Democrats finally competing with a full deck, Rove no longer had the advantage. His vision of taking America back to the 1890s, which his outsized ego allowed him to brag about, never resonated with the American public which prefers to go forward rather than backward.
Rove’s genius was also overrated in terms of his contribution to the Counterrevolution. The Counterrevolution began with Strom Thurmond and Barry Goldwater and reached fruition with Ronald Reagan. Rove merely jumped on the band wagon. But he was never an ideological architect or true believer like Grover Norquist or Richard Viguerie. The true believers never totally accepted him, for Rove did not genuflect convincingly enough before the sacred statue of Ronald Reagan worshiped by the hardcore devotees of the Counterrevolution.
So the departure of Rove is, in short, overrated. The Counterrevolution will continue as it has through previous administrations. And Dick Cheney now controls the White House. One imagines him like Charlie Chaplin in The Great Dictator, doing a dance with a giant globe as if it were a toy balloon.
It is a vision that does not inspire confidence about the coming months.
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