Interesting take, that Rove would remove himself to deprive the Dems of their Great White Whale. But then again, that sounds like Rovespeak. It further builds the Myth of Karl while denigrating the Democrats for believing it AND for being unable to undercut his effectiveness.

KKKarl is not given to self-sacrifice. As George Patton was reputed to have said, no soldier wins by dying for his country; he wins by making some of other poor sombitch die for his. That’s what KKKarl does. So if he’s leaving the scene of his crimes, it’s not to protect the president or the GOP; it’s to protect himself, and presumably, to make a heckuva lot of money while he’s doing it.

- Rove unleashed in the months before an election gives me the creeps. I’d pay top dollar to have the guy tagged with a GPS beacon, and a giant spotlight on him 24-7. Hopefully he’ll simply wind up in jail.

me too

I find tragically amusing critics who think that KKKarl Rove failed when he did not “put aside campaigning and start governing.”

First, that’s what KKKarl does, so he made doing it every day of a presidency the president’s first priority and that of the entire federal bureaucracy. That’s an achievement, not a failure. That it has had devastating consequences is only relevant if KKKarl can be successfully blamed and suffer consequences for it. So far, not so much.

Second, if I were a top 1/10th of one percenter, if I were managing the Bush trust fund or a hedge fund, if I were running an energy company or defense contractor, if my business were affected at all significantly by government oversight, or laws that impose liability on my negiligence or wrongdoing or abuse of my employees, then I’d say George W. Bush hit the ground running and has been governing effectively since before he entered the White House.

Bush has been extraordinarily effective at what was important to him: lowering taxes on the trust fund set, reducing liability of all kinds on businesses, opening the cookie jar to Congress and his contributors, and making government too broke and dysfunctional to repair what he’s done to it.

That list may not be found in any civics book, it may not be found among the acknowledged aspirations of any president past or future, but it was Lil’ George’s list and he done pretty well. Everything else? Until George gets arrested, tried and convicted for any of it, he doesn’t much care. Never has, never will.

Earl, you get an “A” today.

First, that’s what KKKarl does, so he made doing it every day of a presidency the president’s first priority and that of the entire federal bureaucracy. That’s an achievement, not a failure. That it has had devastating consequences is only relevant if KKKarl can be successfully blamed and suffer consequences for it. So far, not so much.

Second, if I were a top 1/10th of one percenter, if I were managing the Bush trust fund or a hedge fund, if I were running an energy company or defense contractor, if my business were affected at all significantly by government oversight, or laws that impose liability on my negiligence or wrongdoing or abuse of my employees, then I’d say George W. Bush hit the ground running and has been governing effectively since before he entered the White House.

Bush has been extraordinarily effective at what was important to him: lowering taxes on the trust fund set, reducing liability of all kinds on businesses, opening the cookie jar to Congress and his contributors, and making government too broke and dysfunctional to repair what he’s done to it.

That list may not be found in any civics book, it may not be found among the acknowledged aspirations of any president past or future, but it was Lil’ George’s list and he done pretty well. Everything else? Until George gets arrested, tried and convicted for any of it, he doesn’t much care. Never has, never will.

All rhetoric about “leadership” aside, Bush will be viewed as a weak executive who ceded far too much authority. Rove’s failures are ultimately his.

Isn’t it ironic, then, that Bush’s administration will also be viewed as the one asserting far-reaching Unitary Executive privileges and authority?

There are a number of ways to read that. One is that “Unitary Executive” is actually a head fake, and really means “More power for Cheney and Rove,” Bush’s presidential surrogates.

Bob in HI

PS – I missed the Kos v DLC thing. Anybody got a link to decent summary i can read?