Last year, heavily involved in the local Kerry-Edwards campaign team, I blogged on an almost daily basis about national and local politics. Disheartened and a bit scared after the election, I mostly switched gears and drove elsewhere on this blog. But the Karl Rove business is pulling me back in...
Anybody at all interested in knowing more about the man who is the senior advisor to Bushie on domestic matters should read Bush's Brain, an account of Rove's influence on the president. No matter what your politics, the fundamental truth here is that Karl Rove is not a leader, he's a political operative. Not a politician himself, but rather a strategist. As such he's spent his career trying to win. He should not be in the West Wing.
I'll avoid the litany of Karl Rove transgressions over the years (read the book--it's as shocking as it is fascinating)--transgressions that date back to his days as a ruthless College Republican--and just offer the reminder that Rove orchestrated the smear campaign against John McCain in 2000 (polling in the deep South about whether folks would support a Republican vet with illegitmate black children, an untrue "hypothetical" that played on a most insidious racism) that probably stole McCain's momentum. He's bad news. I can't believe the level at which the president and press secretary are floundering as they try to manage this crisis. Nor can I believe the general public ignoring the possibility that Rove may have endangered two lives--all for political retribution.
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