Amidst the tears, Rove’s “boy genius” legacy is already being re-written by the right:
“Yes, Karl Rove was a political genius—he was, after all, the successful architect of Bush’s election in 2000 and reelection in 2004. But as the President’s chief policy advisor, Rove was the architect of George W. Bush’s betrayal of the conservative cause.” — Richard Viguerie
“Rove will be remembered for his political skills, which helped Republicans stage a resurgence in the early 2000s, only to lose a grip on Washington last year. Rove always had his hand in everything, and if I fault him for one thing, it’s straying from conservative principles.” — Robert Bluey
And Michelle Malkin remembers “the illegal alien shamnesty, which will be the everlasting stain Rove leaves behind.” This seems to be the big wingnut gripe, that Rove kept them from purging the brown menace from the domestic shores because he knew how badly “the math” looked for the GOP if it failed to somehow draw a growing Hispanic population into the party. As Tom Schaller said:
Why have Republicans found themselves on the point of this wedge? Because in the two decades since the last major immigration measure, the makeup of the national Republican Party and the demography of the country have both changed dramatically. In 1986, radio talkers like Limbaugh could not harness the power of millions of devoted daily listeners to bring national Republican political figures to heel, and the Hispanic vote share was negligible. Twenty years later, Limbaugh is the most popular talk radio host in America, and there are millions of Spanish-speaking immigrants living alongside Rush’s listeners in the kinds of red states where Spanish was rarely heard before. At the same time, the Latino vote has grown to 10 million. The GOP is now forced to choose between its reliable base of close-the-border, English-only cultural whites and the rapidly growing bloc of swing-voting Hispanics.
The demographic winds explain why Karl Rove has been obsessed with corralling the Hispanic vote since he was the little-known sidekick of a would-be Texas governor. He made George Bush a uniquely successful candidate among Latino voters in both state and federal elections by embracing Hispanic culture and avoiding any whiff of anti-immigrant rhetoric. After Bush won a startling 40 percent of the Hispanic votes in 2004, double the GOP total from a decade earlier, the Democrats rightly panicked. The conventional wisdom among pollsters like Republican Matt Dowd — a former Democrat who admits he was attracted to Bush precisely because of the then-Texas governor’s views about Hispanic assimilation — was that if Republicans could reach 40 percent of the Hispanic vote, they would be unbeatable, but if they sank below 30 percent, they would be in a world of electoral trouble. Sure enough, after many 2006 Republican congressional candidates ran nasty, anti-immigrant ads — some juxtaposing the faces of Hispanic immigrants with Islamic terrorists — the GOP share of the Hispanic vote collapsed to 29 percent in the midterm cycle. “The Republicans have to choose if they want to be a 21st-century party, and right now they are making decisions like they’re a 20th-century party,” says the New Democrat Network’s Rosenberg.
Bush’s poll numbers take a hit among the lizard brains every time immigration cycles into the news, but it looks like many of the GOP 08s think the best way to rally the base is to appeal to its urge to purge. In the wake of the Bush Administration’s new regulatory assault on immigrants last Friday, it looks like Turdblossom’s grand architecture for a permament Republican majority that includes Hispanic voters may exeunt the stage along with him.
Wingnuttia applauds.
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Hi Jane! I’m just glad he’s leaving.
{{{{{Jane!}}}}}
next
Donna Brazile just showed her true colors and gushed all over Rove, who she calls her friend.
punaise!! Speak to us.
Single digits! Jane! LS @ 3
Vichy Donna — as I opined yesterday.
just wait until 12 million letters go out that say: you’re fired! one heck of a storm is coming, folks.
In the tri-state area we have an award winning little news show (Regional News Network) and the question of the day is:
RNN News Poll
How Will History Remember Karl Rove?
Political Genius
Architect of GOP Collapse
Unsure
Right now the results are: 12% political genius, 88% architect of GOP collapse and 0% unsure.
On the CT ABC news affiliate (WTNH) the poll question is:
Online Poll
Do you use GPS navigation systems in your car?
Yes
No
I attempted to watch the tape that Think Progress put together on the medias swooning over Rove and couldn’t get half way through. Life is to short to get that stressed out.
And heeeeeeeeeeeeere’s Ed Gillespie!
CNN just showed the whole Cheney Quagmire clip. Then they defended Dick with the old, things have changed, because we had 9/11.
Well, he was right in his predictions in his pre-9/11 mindset – he’s been wrong since he got involved with PNAC and in his judgment post 9/11.
Anyway, he was with the PNAC prior to 9/11 when they decided to do what they are doing now, and they were right in their pre-9/11 mindset that they would need a new Pearl Harbor in order to follow their plans through.
Loo Hoo. @ 4
je reviens dans dix jours… a bientot!
punaise @ 11
See you in 10 days!
Conjecture: Rove is going to run the campaign to reapportion California’s electoral votes, getting rid of the current winner-take-all apportionment. Rove understands winning that fight to be the key to the White House in 2008.
This is OT but why is Condi appointing a baseball person to break the ice abroad? Am I missing the importance of the sport of baseball?
Karl Rove called Donna Brazile from his flight. We actually heard, “Godspeed Karl Rove”.
OT, but important:
Nonprofits sue FEMA over access to legal aid
Agency is banning attorneys from disaster relief centers in Texas, lawsuit says.
Why don’t Jeb and Neil have the same Texas accent as Chimpy?
Milan River @ 17
They didn’t adopt it.
TiredFed @ 6
One trillion dollar worth of ARMs are due for interest adjustment during the next 14 months. I suspect a significant number will go into default. My GF’s mother has a friend who works in a bank loan dept. Last week the defaults were coming in at the rate of 17 per hour. The Fed. pumping money into the economy to maintain liquidity is too little too late.
It’s going to be a rough ride; we need to make damn sure the right people and party receive the blame.
his “grand architecture” will “exit” the stage, not “exeunt”.
TexBetsy @ 12
Hope your time in France is a briez..)
LS @ 10
Who on CNN was defending him? Leslie Blitzer?
Have the front runners commented on the departure of Karl?
Is anyone else having trouble getting sound from youtube? (CNN and other video outlets work fine.) Is there a setting I’ve fouled up? Thx!
I didn’t know they had computers and internets in France. I thought it was just fries…
With Rove’s departure, there is no one to deflect the shit that’s gonna be flyin’ at the WH.
Good.
punaise @ 11,
So what did th French have to say about the visit to Bush in Maine?
Oklahoma kiddo @ 23
Edwards: “Goodbye, good riddance.”
TexBetsy @ 18
And how come Marvin Bush sounds like someone who works for a New Jersey mob boss?
Boston1775 @ 15
Any Democrat that employs her from now on ought to be shamed and ridiculed. Crap like this is what makes people think there are no differences between Dems and Rethuglicans. Hell, didn’t Brazile run Gore’s 2000 campaign? And she calls Rove her friend? Does she forget Rove’s dirty trick on McCain in 2000? She obviously has no conscience.
wigwam @ 13
Put another way, if Dems lose this one, they will never achieve the White HOuse.
Joe Klein’s conscience @ 22
John Roberts (?) and Suzanne Malveaux
johnSwifty @ 29
that’s self evident, doncha think?
I’ll bet Bush is already missing the comfort of Karl Rove’s arm shoved up his ass making his lips move. That’s got to be an empty feeling.
wigwam @ 13
The more I read here, the more I think Rove’s departure has to do with the 2008 elections.
happy monkey @ 34
Don’t worry, Cheney is still pulling the strings.
Amato’s got MC Rove up again for anyone with the stomach for it.
LS @ 32
Where does CNN keep coming up with these clueless, talentless hacks? As much as I didn’t like him at the time, where is Aaron Brown?
LS @ 3
Brazile, Lieberman, Carville, Ford. Judas Sheep.
TiredFed @ 6
What’s this about, fed?
August 13th, 2007 by Jesse Lee
Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers released the following statement in reaction to President Bush’s announcement that Karl Rove will resign at the end of the month:
“The need for Karl Rove to explain his role in the firing of the U.S. Attorneys does not diminish when he leaves the White House. Our investigation to date has revealed the White House’s contempt for the rule of law and its interest in the politicization of the Department of Justice.
“While resignations at DoJ and the White House continue to mount, questions raised by this investigation remain. We will continue to seek answers to these questions and expect full cooperation from Mr. Rove and other officials regardless of whether they are employed by the White House.”
http://www.speaker.gov/blog/?p=673
happy monkey @ 34
You mean Karl’s resignation isn’t the only evacuation!!!!?????
*xyz @ 39
Ford stands for the battle to gain the center of American politics. You may feel that the better strategy now is to go for broke: let’s elect a very liberal president whose politics match our own. Problem is, if you fail you end up with President Huckabee. Are you prepared to take a chance on a Baptist preacher appointing 3 or 4 more Supremem Court Justices?
Loo Hoo. @ 37
no thanks, once was more than enough
Joe Klein’s conscience @ 38
Aaron Brown was taken over by Anderson Cooper during Katrina. It was really rude the way CNN did it too. Two hours of Brown instead of one, with Cooper getting all the light.
Well, the GOP can’t actually win anything if they play fair. Karl taught them that lesson and it is one they have taken to heart. The California Initiative is the latest development in their “Department of Dirty Tricks,” and if Karl didn’t have a hand in that one, I’ll eat my hat. The blogosphere needs to be screaming at the top of their lungs about what these cockroaches are trying to do in California, because shining light on cockroaches always slows them down.
Marretta @ 46
It speeds em up in Georgia!
Loo Hoo. @ 45
I remember that, he got shoved aside a bit abruptly
And then there’s Byron York, who informs us that all of Karl’s missteps, bad mojo and outright failures during the second term were caused by….
Patrick Fitzgerald.
http://article.nationalreview……ViNzgzMWQ=
Karl got distracted. Yeah, that’s it. The nasty justice department and their grand juries and all the crushing might of the state brought to bear on one innocent man. Caused him to take his eye off the ball. Seriously.
Marretta @ 46
Do you know if the Dem Party is doing anything about this? Can they stop it or counteract w/ another state? Anything?
Donna Brazile, the proud Louisiana girl, gushes over Rove…someone should ask her if she is pleased with how her home state has been treated by this adm.
brendan @ 20
It is, in fact, “exeunt.” Look it up.
Apparently 9/11 changed everything except the facts.
-GSD
Jane Hamsher @ 52
Isn’t exeunt plural?
ironranger @ 51
Donna early on after Katrina gushed about how the administration took care of her family. Guess she doesn’t put country or party first.
Great post Jane.
Re the ‘lets get a new accent even though we all grew up with the same Momma and Pappy’:
Ego boundaries form a necessary basis for distinguishing real from not real- they are the demarcation line. The loss of ego boundary is a symptom of scizophrenia. IMHO I think its all related.
Does anyone have a link explaining what Rove, et al are doing in California? Sounds pretty suspicious, especially since SOS Bowen has finally taken some action to correct the voting machine scam.
Jane Hamsher @ 52
Wow, I learn something new everyday here. I have GOT to use “exeunt” in a sentence before the day is up.
On the California electoral mess from
age.do”>Calitics:
It’s an old joke in L.A. that nobody here knows about a local story until it makes the New York Times. Well, then by now, they’ve all read about this attempt by GOP lawyers to change the way California’s electoral votes are apportioned and hand the 2008 election to the Republicans.
When state Democratic leaders from around the country meet this weekend in Vermont, the California chairman, Art Torres, expects to be peppered with the sort of questions that have been clogging his in-box for weeks.
What is this about Republicans trying to change the way Electoral College votes are allocated in California? Is there a countereffort by Democrats in the works? What does it mean for presidential candidates?
Torres has a couple quotes in the piece, but what interested me is a preview of the messaging that will be used to sell this scheme to the general public. It actually mirrors what every Democrat in the Legislature was saying in the run-up to changing the Presidential primary date…
TexBetsy @ 54
Yep, bonus for you, Betsy.
I can’t wait for TDS and Colbert tonight.
So according to the Rovians, it is the American Way to be a shady, evil character with a black bag full of dirty tricks that border on criminality. Congrads Karl, you’re a success.
BigMitch @ 43
This is a false issue Mitch. The reason the Rethugs want Hillary is that they know she will be the easiest to beat. She has very high negs across te board. Also there is every reason to believe that she will continue to pursue the ludicrous immoral course in Iraq that the neo-cons have pressed. To oppose the so-called center (actually neo-con right light) is the most politically viable thing for Dems to do if they want to win.
Looks like Manuel Noriega (aka Ollie North’s connection) is about to be extradited to France. No wonder Bush has been meeting with the new French Pres. He wants to make sure France will keep a muzzle on Noriega lest he write the story of the king of the cocaine cowboys, GHWB
http://uk.reuters.com/article/…..6120070813
Sorry, for Calitics:
It’s an old joke in L.A. that nobody here knows about a local story until it makes the New York Times. Well, then by now, they’ve all read about this attempt by GOP lawyers to change the way California’s electoral votes are apportioned and hand the 2008 election to the Republicans.
When state Democratic leaders from around the country meet this weekend in Vermont, the California chairman, Art Torres, expects to be peppered with the sort of questions that have been clogging his in-box for weeks.
What is this about Republicans trying to change the way Electoral College votes are allocated in California? Is there a countereffort by Democrats in the works? What does it mean for presidential candidates?
Torres has a couple quotes in the piece, but what interested me is a preview of the messaging that will be used to sell this scheme to the general public. It actually mirrors what every Democrat in the Legislature was saying in the run-up to changing the Presidential primary date…
Surprised I haven’t seen anybody mention that Chris Matthews just basically bashed Rove, questioning why he wasn’t frog-marched out of the WH because of his involvement in the Plame incident. He called him a bum! Focused attention on the fact that the President promised that anyone involved in the incident will be “taken care of”…”is this what he meant?”
The more I think about it, the more I think he now doesn’t have to come back to D.C., so he won’t be such a target for the Sergeant in Arms. By the time this Congress reconvenes, Karl will be long gone.
Funny note from history. Manuel Noreiga’s machete wielding brownshirted thugs were called “dignity battalions”.
A page from the Rove/Atwater book.
-GSD
Loo Hoo. @ 66
Do you have a link Loo Hoo?
AP) Gozo resigns and Bush recess appoints Rove as AG.
I think I know what happened.
Having done this many times: architecture for a permanent Republican majority that includes Hispanic voters… this is a singular subject (architecture) even though the descriptive parts of the phrase ends with the plural, voters.
shexeunt happens
More from Calitics:
David Dayen :: Right-Wing Electoral College Scheme Gets National Attention
Far more potentially significant in the near term, however, is a recent move by the lawyer for the California Republican Party to ask voters in a ballot measure to apportion electoral votes by Congressional district. With numerous safe Republican districts around the state, this change could represent roughly 20 electoral votes for a Republican candidate who would otherwise presumably lose the entire state, which has been reliably Democrat (thanks for the slur, New York Times! -ed.) in recent presidential elections.
“We think it is the most effective way of having California count,” said Kevin Eckery, a spokesman for the ballot effort, the Presidential Election Reform Act. “Candidates love California in the spring when they come out to raise money. But after that, as long as California is not in play, it tends to be ignored.”
They’re going to use a message of fairness and making California count. That’s going to be attractive to a low-information voter, and millions will have to be spent to counter it.
According to the Times piece, Eckery’s group is fundraising right now, and it will probably take a few million dollars to get the initiative on the June ballot, including about half a million for polling. That’s a low bar; and that’s why it is so crucial that we get the word out immediately about this effort to steal the vote. Building a war chest is less important than using some CDP money to define what this initiative would represent – a piecemeal solution to a problem that would virtually guarantee a Republican successor to George Bush. This is not something to attack with nuance; the goal is to make it so unpopular that any effort to put it on the ballot would be a suicide mission.
even farther through the looking glass:
“Freedom is not a concept in which people can do anything they want, be anything they can be. Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do.”
–Rudolph Giuliani
Steve-AR @ 19
Yes, a rough ride, but I doubt they will all default. If people are smart, they’ll negotiate something with the banks. The banks will NOT be in a position to strongarm the loan holders: the last thing they WANT is to be holding the bag on all this property. Much better to get some sort of payments than none at all. So…yes, bad, but also a potential opportunity for ARM holders who talk to their banks, I think.
Linky to Calitics, but I gave you everything. You may want to bookmark it for future perusal…
Eureka Springs @ 70
you are NOT serious, are you?
Help! My pResident lost his brain today.
Richmond @ 64
Hillary is a polarizing figure to the right. To me she is a self serving boring careerist. What is the point then of Hillary? She will appoint self serving careerists. I cannot remember the name of the lady the Clintons first wanted for AG, some non entity insurance company GC who had a nanny gate problem, then a federal judge out of a NYC law firm who had a nanny gate problem, then Janet Reno. Then George Tenet, Louis Freeh and Sandy Berger and James Rubin. Never again. But the pitch will be it’s all better than the Bushes and I suppose it is. But that does not mean that it all is not bad. Because it surely is.
Elliott @ 76
Its to hot to be serious..) just cranky.
Loo Hoo. @ 75
Thanks for that. I’m so glad I know about the scheme now.
ccmask @ 77
Never mind the brain, what about Bush’s costumes? Rove has been dressing him for photo ops for years, kinda reminds me of KEN. Rove probably designed the mission accomplished outfit complete with cod piece, plus his cowboy outfit is pretty cool.
Ann in AZ @ 67
I cannot figure out Tweety. He loves him some BushCO. on odd days. On even days he is on his knees. Or am I just not getting it?
BigMitch @ 43
False. Just because Ford and the DLC loudly repeat it doesn’t make it true. They call themselves “centrists” but when you compare their positions to those of actual American voters, they’re clearly conservatives. They’ve been advocating compromising with increasingly right-wing Republicans to gain the support of the “center” for two decades now, and they’ve consistently lost.
We won big in 2006 because we had many candidates who were unabashed Democrats who were not shy about opposing Bush and the Republicans, and supporting supposedly “liberal” positions that had 70-90% support from American voters (ending the war in Iraq, minimum-wage hike, universal healthcare, etc.) Supporting a relatively liberal candidate isn’t “going for broke,” supporting a DLC candidate is — gambling that their strategy that has repeatedly failed is magically true, and if not, you’ve lost both the presidency and any claim to an opposing position to fight from.
marymccurnin @ 81
Who could love them all week long?
MaryMC, Tweety is like a dog rewarded with a bone for good behavior.
Late to the party. Did I see that punaise sent us a “Ze weather iz here, wish you were booo-tiful” postcard from France?
marymccurnin @ 82
Fair and balanced.
Heh.
Rove is the architect of the bridge to nowhere for the Republic Party.
-GSD
Can somebody help me? Didn’t the Education Secretary tell the story of Rove asking her out for a date and she turned him down. He’s been married all this time, right? Did he forget?
Other Pat @ 88
I think it was for a date a long time ago.
leftdcin72 @ 78
Zoe Baird and Kimba Wood.
-GSD
marymccurnin @ 82
You know, I meant to mention that you could get tennis neck from Chris Matthews the way he skips around. Damned if I can predict which way he’ll fall on any given issue on any given day!
marymccurnin @ 82
Matthews is self important scum..end of story..
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com…..re-is.html
TiredFed @ 6
Please tell me more. I’m all ears.
Bob in HI
I guess to Matthews Rove is now “fair game”.
http://www.chrismatthewsdiary.blogspot.com/
tee he
I do not like the DLC. I do not like Ford. And I am suspect of those with deep connections to the DLC. As Markos said yesterday, in answer to Ford, ‘the left is the Democratic mainstream’.
Peter Boyer..on Tweety,
Karl frogmarched himself out of the WH…
TexBetsy @ 90
thanks. mistakingly thought it was a reference to a fairly recent exchange.
Steve-AR @ 93
That was absolutely harassment and I called him out immediately. It was humiliating to a young woman reporter. Period.
Boston1775 @ 99
the man’s a disgrace.
Bitch, on Tweety,
Guiliani can clean up cities, because he cleaned up liberal New York City.
Grrrrrrrrrrrr
Tweety tries to de-beefify his creepy cod-piece worshipping image by getting a little beet creepier.
-GSD
Giuliani would be 100 times worse than Bush…total nazi, police state.
Boston1775 @ 99
Boston1775 — where did you call him out? Are you Digby?
Other Pat @ 89
Years ago when they were both in college.
Joe Klein’s conscience @ 38
Aaron was OK, as long as it was a desk job.
Anderson Cooper is the only one there who seems to get it, in the field or in the studio. Is he their only real journalist?
Bob in HI
“People want the cities cleaned up so they can visit them”. What a fucking moron.
Hillary Clinton will work a little magic – fund-raising style – at a star-studded upcoming Los Angeles event at the home of former NBA star, businessman and philanthropist Earvin (Magic) Johnson.Hillary’s got that “Magic” touch.
dakine01 @ 106
Link repaired by MOD
TexBetsy @ 105
I was watching it and commented on what he was doing right here. I could not believe my eyes.
James Moore on his long-time nemesis KKKarl:
In his parting news conference with the president, Rove readily invoked the name of an Almighty but even this act was hypocritical. He told his friend Bill Israel years ago that he was agnostic and that “he wished he could believe, but he cannot.” Karl Rove, though, can turn even religious agnosticism into a political advantage. Were he to eventually confront a judgmental deity, that may be the one place where he will finally discover the justice he has long managed to avoid.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…..60211.html
Sometimes I kinda like the idea of a Dog with a serious bug up His ass.
bobschacht @ 93
Aloha, Bob, are ya hunkering down?
Buchanan in for Tucker.
Ann in AZ,
Tweety is easy to figure out. He has one heck of s man-crush on Dubya and he is hates Karl because Dubya doesn’t just love him, but he gave him a hug in public. What would Tweety give to get a hug from Captain Codpiece?
Buchanan in for Tucker.
Amnesty is Good
Thinking a little bit about changing the national debate, I’ve been thinking that we need to detoxify the word “amnesty,” which the right wing has successfully turned into a dirty word, thereby framing the rest of the “reasonable” national conversation.
We all know how this goes:
RIGHT WING PUNDIT: You’re advocating for amnesty!
IMMIGRANTS’ RIGHTS ADVOCATE: Now, it’s not amnesty, because [insert wonky legislative details].
At this point, we’ve already lost the debate, because 1) we’ve accepted the premise that amnesty is bad and 2) we’re no longer in the position of asking the questions, but of answering them, on the defensive, thereby losing control of the conversation. He (or she!) who asks the questions controls the conversation. 3) no one gets persuaded among the masses by wonky details.
It will take consistent effort, lots of repetition and multiple platforms to detoxify the word “amnesty,” but in my view, until we work together to do this, the range of “reasonable” options open to us will always be restricted. The right wing pushes us back on “amnesty” using the “law and order” frame (which, of course, the term “illegal immigrants” reinforces, as everyone on this list knows already). I don’t know how people like to respond, but we can pretty much take our pick of issues to deny the premise that the right wing has any interest in law and order, from Gitmo, to Scooter Libby, to the US Attorney scandal, etc. My preferred response for our community would be:
RIGHT WING PUNDIT: You’re in favor of rewarding criminals!
IMMIGRANTS’ RIGHTS ADVOCATE: And if the country is interested in law and order, it should begin by taking Republicans out of control of the country, since they will fire any US Attorney who does not go out of their way to suppress the votes of people of color living here as legal US citizens.
Again, deny the underlying premise, and denying them their succesful frame of “law and order.”
If, on the other hand, we begin to say things like:
IMMIGRANTS’ RIGHTS ADVOCATE: No, it’s not quite amnesty, but it should be, and anyone who disagrees should take it up with the ghost of Ronald Reagan, the last American president to advocate for and oversee a sensible, successful amnesty program.
Or. . .
IMMIGRANTS RIGHTS ADVOCATE: Yes, it is a kind of amnesty, and that’s a good thing because. . . [fill in research and data points].
Tweety hates Rove *and* Cheney because they’ve screwed up the Grand Plan of the Great and Wonderful George.
GREAT coverage today, gals! There is no comparable analysis anywhere else on the net. You are hitting every angle. What was that I heard last week about female bloggers?
So back that butt up here, Jiggles! Don’t act like you don’t like it!!
Has Matthews been a pig all his life or is his diabetes not under control? He has had recent hospital stays due to diabetes. I know a diabetic who denied he had it & wouldn’t go to the dr until he had mini strokes from what we can tell. His behavior is similar to Matthews’, talks & acts like a juvenile as if he has lost several IQ points, doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
“Getting a Republican elected to Bush’s 3rd term”…WTF????
guy on Tweety just called Hillary “her own wedge issue.”
I agree.
ironranger @ 120
Nah, that’s the real him.
Honestly, the man should be in treatment.
Has Matthews been a pig all his life or is his diabetes not under control?
He hasn’t gotten any sugar since being invited to the White House Christmas party.
Isn’t a medical report that says the president has “intermittent Disorientation” grounds to claim him unfit for duty…../s
The high-energy Rove could be sharp-tongued and ruthless with enemies; he’ll revel in such denunciations as John Edwards’ “good riddance.” And Rove was chronically good-natured with colleagues. He even has running jokes with individual waiters in the White House Mess, who appreciate the recognition.
Even during the roughest days of a campaign, asked how he was, Rove would reply, “If I was any better, I’d be subject to arrest.” About once a week he would walk through his offices with a shopping bag full of ice cream bars handing them to staff. “Ice cream time,” he’d say.
After some time off with his family before school starts for the fall, Rove intends to travel the country giving speeches, which could be a lucrative year while the Bush presidency winds down and the ‘08 election campaign winds up.
Then he intends to write a book about his long political life from Texas politics to the Oval Office of the White House. Chances are, despite the 2006 election setbacks suffered by Republicans, many Republican campaigns from House primaries to the GOP struggle for the presidential nomination will seek his advice in coming months, which he has said he will offer. But he does not intend to return to political consulting. Rather, he plans eventually to set up a strategic business consulting company.
jayt @ 122
But he loves her voice.
Raven@123: Well, if Chris has always been a sleeze, he would fit right in at any dive bar at 1am with the rest of the drunken slimeballs. The only difference is size of the paycheck & belonging to the social “elite”.
Amnesty is amnesty.
But the Security and Prosperty Partnership,
is not about security; it’s only about corporate business prosperity.
I would certainly watch the meeting in Ottowa on Aug. 21st between the heads of Mexico, Canada and the US.
It has all to do with our future.
I’ll bet a nickel that Rove had a big mitt in that little item.
(www.spp.gov) etc.
all the best,
David
Nothing like Rove stealing the thunder of the GOP candidates’ Iowa straw poll news. Emphasis on how inconsequential Romney and Huckabee are. GOP must be fuming over the timing of this White house announcement at the crack of dawn on Monday morning.
ironranger @ 129
roger that
wow. Tony Blankley doesn’t look so much like a fat pig any more. Doesn’t he realize he’s a Republican?
He’s gonna lose his pasty/sweaty street cred.
I agree with you Pach. Also, politicians should talk about the effects of NAFTA and CAFTA on the immigrants. These people love their home countries. They should discuss the fence in terms of the Berlin Wall.
BAGHDAD – Iraq’s prime minister appeared to clear the way Monday — with a last-minute push from the U.S. ambassador — for a crisis council that seeks to save his crumbling government.
The U.S. military, meanwhile, announced a third major operation since additional U.S. troops arrived and said it would target al-Qaida in Iraq and Iranian-allied Shiite militia fighters nationwide. The military gave few other details.
But the sinking fortunes of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his Shiite-led administration have become something of a second front for Washington.
Can somebody help me? Didn’t the Education Secretary tell the story of Rove asking her out for a date and she turned him down. He’s been married all this time, right? Did he forget?
I feel that Rove leaks stories from time to time about his interest in women when the rumors of his, er, other lifestyle begin to take hold.
Headline:
Rats flee; Bush says ship just fine
Loo Hoo. @ 45
Thanks for that reminder. But Cooper got the light because he could operate credibly in the field, and Brown couldn’t seem to find is way around once he went out the door. Coop seems equally at ease in the field as in the studio. During Katrina, he had enough sense from time to time to step back and let the camera and the witnesses tell the story (which means that his crew had some really good camera people). Also, Coop didn’t spend a lot of time trying to look pretty. I’d like to see some evaluations of Coop and other CNN folks from other professional TV journalists. Coop seems to me a bit more like a Dan Rather type, who even when he got a prime time news anchor position, wanted to get out into the field and do some “real” reporting.
CNN gets some really sharp cookies, but then their management team spoon-feeds them homogenized pap to say, and robs them of their ability to think independently. Coop escaped that cycle because his Katrina cred made him too valuable, and Coop used his insta-success to resist being over-managed. IMHO, YMMV, etc.
Bob in HI
And the WTO is a nasty piece of work.
I love Rachel Maddow but happy Sam Seder is filling in for her. James Moore is on now.
LS @ 126
There are two cases where that does not apply. First, it does not apply if that President is a puppet. Second, it does not apply if that President is a Republic. Bush is a puppet Republic, so he’s allowed to continue in office.
marshen @ 131
Good catch
apologies if this has already been posted
here after it was published in the nyt book review on 8/5, but it certainly does fit this thread.
____________________________________________
August 5, 2007
The Road to Rightville
By STEPHEN METCALF
As I grow older, I avail myself more and more of the ancient prerogatives of old men. I hitch my pants high, shake my head at the barbarous young and drive a stone-cold 55 on the highway. I’m risk-averse and dress as I please. (In my beginning is my end: I’ve evolved from slob to hipster slob to ironic slob back, finally, to slob.) I distrust change, labor unions and Al Sharpton and believe that at high enough rates income taxes become confiscatory. In short, I am white, privileged, middle-aged and boring.
But one thing I am not, and never will be, is a conservative. The recent essay anthology “Why I Turned Right: Leading Baby Boom Conservatives Chronicle Their Political Journeys” (Threshold Editions, $23) has given us liberals a chance to think about why, even in our calcifying stodginess, American conservatism remains a nonstarter for us, a stack of loyalty oaths we’d never be tempted to sign.
(snip)
a more accurate wording might have been “Why I Turned Right: Or, The Experience That Closed My Mind Forever.” Richard Starr, writing about the revulsion he felt for the 1970s, begins his essay by concluding, “Jimmy Carter made me the conservative I am today, as I suspect he did many members of my generation.”
(snip)
The left is knee-jerk and borderline depraved; the right is freethinking and decent. All very fair, no doubt. Lay this down as your given and the comforting solecisms flow forth unregulated. When the left is being idealistic, it is naïve, utopian, technocratic and meddling. When the right is being idealistic, it is idealistic. Thus Lyndon Johnson’s war on poverty reveals the left to be hopelessly overreaching, as David Brooks assures us, while George W. Bush’s war in Iraq “is one of the noblest endeavors the United States, or any great power, has ever undertaken.”
Democrats fail essentially; Republicans fail incidentally. Conservatives have been playing this game of “heads I win, tails you lose” for roughly a generation. Ever since Ronald Reagan twitted Jimmy Carter with “there you go again,” the American right has carried itself with a swagger, confident the crowd will have its back.
(snip)
From the evidence of this volume, their righteous anger at liberalism is not cynical. Not at all. Conservative pundit-intellectuals have locked into a magical frequency, one that remains occult to the left, connects with a large segment of the viewing and reading public, and comes from someplace very sincere.
(snip)
Young people tend to be politically unthinking, and liberal arts professors tend to be arrested young people. But many undergraduates, encountering the towering stupidity of college radicalism, tenured and otherwise, chose to be conservative, where conservative meant deferential to the past, appropriately awed by greatness, calm, courteous, skeptical and cautious.
(snip)
Here we near the answer to our riddle: how privileged college graduates, while fronting for the interests of corporations and the rich, speak the language of angry populism, and with such depth of conviction. “I remember,” D’Souza writes, misting up at his college days, “some of those early dinners at the Hart farmhouse, where we drank South American wine and listened to recordings of Hemingway and Fitzgerald, Robert Frost reading his poems, Nixon speeches, comedian Rich Little doing his Nixon imitation, George C. Scott delivering the opening speech in ‘Patton,’ some of Churchill’s orations, and the music from the BBC version of Evelyn Waugh’s ‘Brideshead Revisited.’ ” In a similar vein, David Brooks writes of his early days as a right-winger: “I remember a series of parties with libertarians, pro-lifers, Scoop Jackson hawks, movement activists and movement dissenters all dancing together to the Talking Heads.”
In Rich Lowry’s essay, the point is finally driven home. “To this day,” he writes, “I read between sets on the weight machines at the gym, and while brushing my teeth.”
(snip)
To be genuinely humiliated is to know how to tap into the humiliations of others. Rejecting tout court a culture of cool that prevails against him, a certain sort of person turns to campus politics. Because these conservatives were, by and large, low-status males (or the feminism-disdaining women who loved them) in high school and college, they know instinctively how to connect with the culturally dispossessed.
(Stephen Metcalf writes the Dilettante column for Slate and is a frequent contributor to the Book Review.)
_____________________________________________
you have to log in to read it – but you dont have to pay.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/05/books/review/
new jane upstairs
Great headline, consistent with the right’s self-righteous world view
I’m pretty easy-going, but when Michelle Malkin is spouting gibberish like “shamnesty”, well, I need a little something to keep my cool.
The myth of America is that it is a conservative country. This is a country born of revolution. To lose vision of that is to lose vision of what the U.S. is all about. Revolution on the march should be the mantra. Conservatism is nothing but moving backwards.
What the Bush-Cheney GOP won’t fault Rove for is what it doesn’t fault its revered corporate CEOs for. The CEOs waffle on about strategic growth while they’re actually myopic about manipulating next quarter’s balance sheet. Rove waffled on about a permanent Republican majority while he turned the administration into a policy-free zone, piling dodgy short-term electoral expedient upon dodgy short-term electoral expedient. It couldn’t last. He couldn’t last.
Did anyone notice Rove wadded up the paper his speech was printed on after he was done reading it?
Not the sign of a “happy Camper” going off to spend time with the family…
Steve-AR @ 19
OTOH, we Democrats choose to fix problems and lead the country.
We should find some way to smooth out the bump by perhaps allowing mortgage lenders to renegotiate unilaterally, within government guidelines, to help homeowners manage to pay off their loans by stretching them out and reducing payments, again according to some government guidelines Congress might set.
Smooth out the bump and keep the market liquidity and we’ll all do better — including people who don’t think they have a dog in this fight.
solai @ 50
In 2006 California elected a progressive Dem named Debra Bowen to be Sec. of State. She initiated a top to bottom review of all the electronic voting machines and found them all pretty much crap.
Other states can take that and get rid of them too.
That’s one reason Repubs are working on California. They don’t have the machines to fix things.
But, the bigger trend is to get rid of the machines nationwide and that will help Democracy, regardless of who might win.
Check out http://www.BradBlog.com for more on the electronic voting machines scandal.
Jane Hamsher @ 52
“Exeunt” means “they exit”.