For Karl Rove, A Busy New Career And A ‘Rovian’ Legacy

by Mark Leibovich - October 10th, 2008 - New York Times

Last weekend, Mr. Rove said on his Web site, Rove.com, that Mr. Obama, based on a compilation of recent polling, would win 273 electoral votes — enough to defeat Senator John McCain if the election were held then. While polls had shown the momentum swinging to Mr. Obama, to hear the so-called architect of the Bush presidency saying so was deemed a watershed development among political insiders.

“His name seems as pervasive now as it ever was,” Dan Bartlett, the former senior counselor to President Bush, said of Mr. Rove.

Indeed he does — even though the patron with whom Mr. Rove will always be tied, Mr. Bush, owns some of the lowest presidential-approval ratings ever; even though the “Republican realignment” Mr. Rove once envisioned seems a far-off fantasy.

The reason it is a fantasy is because to Rove it was never about principal, it was always about policy. Rove was just as comfortable with any big government program as he was with lower taxes. It merely required that some large constituency backed a specific issue and Karl Rove thought it was okay to jump on board, proclaim support and they would follow him.

Karl Rove was the initiator of the Republican lunge towards big government socialism under George W. Bush, who like Rove, saw no problem with socialism as long as it was administered by Republicans. In the process these two have presided over the destruction of the Republican Party as the major party. They have returned it to minority party status because no one knows what Republicans believe.

In the process they have left the vast majority of Americans believing that free enterprise is causing our current economic crisis, that Republicans are the corrupt party, that government is the solution, that invading Iraq was a mistake because it was all about oil, that our war is against Al Qaeda - not Islamo-fascism, that single payer health care with government taking over is the way to reduce health costs, that religious Republicans are as much of a threat to freedom as the religious fanatics that took down the twin towers . . . and that social security is just as stable as our home mortgage system.

We are about to abandon the very concept of freedom in the search for a nanny state. During the 90s there was a great deal of tyranny practiced by Clinton administration officials. It was tyranny directed at lending officers in financial institutions who did not meet the government assigned quotas of home loans in poor neighborhoods. These officials were threatened with loss of their jobs, prison, financial devastation, all for the hideous crime of not meeting government assigned goals in loaning to people not capable of repaying the loans. I have explained this to groups of Republicans and had people laugh about the threats and dismiss them with the reaction, "who cares, they were only loan officers . . . ha, ha, ha."

NOT outrage that such tyranny should happen here in America. Casual indifference and laughter. If any single thing dramatizes the evil that Karl Rove and George Bush have inflicted on the party that used to represent freedom, it is this reaction among a major element of our party. Tyranny and abuse of power does not resonate with Republicans as it used to when socialism was accepted as evil. Today, most Republicans don't see a problem with socialism.

Karl Rove and George Bush have brought in to our party, and changed the motivations of so many of our party, that there is no longer an ethical commitment to freedom and free enterprise and the concept of working hard to accomplish the American Dream. Today we have become like the Democrats in that regard. We are simply a collection of special interest groups under one label that often are at each other's throats because we share so little other than the party label.

I am one Republican who despises Karl Rove and his insipid follower George W. Bush. It is sad that so many still admire and follow this man. I see him as evil.