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Politics and Policy
Karl Rove Exits Stage Right
The big news on Monday, politically, was the pending resignation of Karl Rove from his White House postions, effective at the end of August (2007). He claims he wants to spend time with his family in Texas, and was not going to be working for any candidate in the 2008 election. The White House also leaked that the word had gone out that anyone who was leaving before the end of Bush's second term should do so before the end of August, or they should stay for the remainder.
I waited a day to post anything about this because I wanted to let things settle out a bit. In the interim, the news media was immediately awash in stories about the demise of Karl Rove, and about him being the “boy genius” who was the architect of Pres. George W. Bush’s dynasty.
If Rove was a genius, he was an evil one. His entire career was based upon changing the U.S. political system for the worse, using lies, rumor and innuendo in place of facts or debates of policy. As an architect his “grand design” was on how to steal an election, by fair means or foul (mostly foul). Among the many “lowlights” of his career, consider that he retained a student draft exemption during the Vietnam war despite regularly dropping classes or only going to school part-time; when the student deferment ended he was mysteriously re-classified as “1-H – not subject to the draft” at a time when he was campaigning for Nixon’s re-election; he was a protégé of Donald Segretti, a Watergate “plumber” who was convicted of being a co-conspirator in that scandal; he became Chairman of the College Republicans in 1973 after subverting the election process for that organization; he became a master of using lies, rumors, and innuendo against an opponent in various state elections, and he learned to win a close election by muddying the re-counts and throwing the election to be decided by a stacked court.
The details are well beyond the scope of this little topic, so read some more here:
Karl Rove and the College Republicans
Karl Rove in a Corner
But now let us consider two issues: Why did he resign, and what will he do in the future?
Why Did Rove Resign?
The White House press release said that Karl Rove is resigning to return to Texas and spend more time with his family. Of course, last year a press release from the White House also said that Federal District Attorney John McKay had resigned to “pursue interests in the private sector”. If you will recall, John McKay was forced to resign because he wouldn’t bring voter fraud charges against Democrats because there was no evidence. So any White House statement regarding Rove’s reasons for leaving should be treated with just as much credibility.
Rove’s position in the White House gave him a lot of advantages. He and his staff were paid by the taxpayers to do little more than work for the Republican Party. Sure, there are laws against that, but enforcing those laws against politically powerful people in the White House has proven to be very difficult.
But Rove has recently become a bit of a lightening rod, and the recent Congressional SubpoenaS appears to be hitting home. Rove works best when he is behind the curtain, manipulating the machine – you see the results, but not the mechanism. The Congressional investigations just might be shining too much light on his operations for him to operate in his accustomed manner. Accordingly, perhaps Bush and Rove and Cheney all felt that if Rove distanced himself from the White House, the light would be diffused a bit. This might delay the impact of the investigations until after Bush’s term is over – at the end of which they would all be pardoned. Of course, this assumes that they don’t believe that there is a “smoking gun” which will be revealed about Rove soon, and they aren’t trying to get him out of the way as soon as possible so they can put some distance between him and the White House.
It is also possible that they all felt that Rove had done all he could to support President Bush, and that he served no further purpose continuing in the White House. After all, his forte’ is the manipulation of elections, and Bush wasn’t going to be elected again. Why not release him to work for the Republicans in general, or specific candidates?
What Will Rove Do in the Future?
As the title of the above link “Karl Rove in a Corner” indicates, Rove’s political demise has been prematurely predicted many times before (that article was written before the 2004 election). Karl Rove has always been able to deliver results for the party, and the Republicans will undoubtedly use him again, in some form or fashion.
The question, then, is what will Karl Rove do in the next fifteen months preceeding the 2008 elections? He has stated that he will not “work for any candidate”, but that certainly leaves him open for working for the Republican party in general, and nobody will hold him to task if he renigs and ultimately decides to work for the presumptive Republican nominee.
My best guess: Karl Rove will be doing what he does best: feigning inactivity and “retirement”, while manipulating the electoral machinery to deliver the 2008 Presidential Election, and seeking to recover the House and Senate for the Republicans.
Among the tactics which bear his handprints: the California referendum to change the system of apportioning electoral college votes from a “winner take all” to “proportional disbursement.” This means that instead of one candidate taking all the California electoral college votes, they would be distributed based upon who won each precinct – meaning that Republicans would take away at least one-third of California’s electoral college votes, even in a bad year for them. There are moves in other “blue” states to do the same – but only in the “blue” states. If successful, it means that states which usually have a Republican majority would give all their votes to the Republicans, but states which usually have a Democratic majority would have to split their votes.
I’m sure that Rove has lots of other tools in his pocket, such as having “Swift Boat” campaigns already outlined against each of the Democratic presidential candidates, or the manipulation of the process of counting votes. The 2004 elections may just be a precursor, where there was manipulation of the voter roles and voting machine distribution in Ohio by a willing Blackwell, a Republican Secretary of State in Ohio, and the incomprehensible vote totals recorded by electoral voting machines in Florida in the 2004 elections.
Was the 2004 Election Stolen?
(Posted by RHP6033 on 8/14/2007)
Check out the other “Politics and Policy” Articles (click the link below):
Politics and Policy Articles
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