Karl Rove and Michel Foucault

In his 1970 book, The Order of Things, the French philosopher Michel Foucault proclaimed that the concept of man "is an invention of recent date" and would soon disappear, "like a face drawn in sand at the edge of the sea." Foucault and other postmodernists argued that the individual self (or subject) is an ideological construct, and that there is no "truth" aside from discursive myths society perpetuates and constructs through language and thought. Karl Rove, with his recent history lesson on the Charlie Rose show, has posited a similar set of ideas. For Rove, like Foucault, there is no such thing as objective "truth," only assertions mediated through an ever-shifting discourse where the past and the future matter little and are infinitely malleable.

Rove's recounting of the run-up to the Iraq invasion is not, as some commentators called it, historical "revisionism." Historians who revise history must do so through constructing an argument. Any historical argument must have the minimal prerequisite of an evidentiary base. What Rove has given us is not an argument but an assertion, and it is an assertion devoid of evidence in the historical record whatsoever. Worse still, it is an assertion that is diametrically opposed to the record. It is a sad and cynical display that would make even George Orwell's jaw drop.

"One of the untold stories" about the war in Iraq, Rove told Charlie Rose (who is ever eager for a snow-job from his national security guests), is that the Bush administration had been "opposed" to Congress holding the vote authorizing the use of military force in Iraq prior to the 2002 midterm elections because "we thought it made it too political."

Rove's assertion is that he and his boss were so high-minded they opposed using the September/October 2002 rush to war for "political" gain. So Rove argues that all of those Republican National Committee smears against the Democrats as "appeasers" and peaceniks in the face of Saddam's "stockpile" of WMDs were all just constructed epistemes denuded of intrinsic meaning? And all of those belligerent demands for a U.S. attack on Iraq emanating from Bush administration mouthpieces, including Rove, because Saddam constituted a "gathering threat" were destined to fade like "faces drawn at the edge of the sea?"

According to Rove, the hasty invasion of Iraq with all of its concomitant ills arose from the actions of those impolitic Democrats who controlled the Senate in 2002. Warmongering Democrats like Tom Daschle, John Kerry, and Hillary Clinton (as well as Dick Gephardt in the House) were so determined to attack Iraq and squeeze from it political advantage that they "made things move too fast," Rove asserted. "We" -- meaning the Bush administration -- "don't determine when the Congress votes on things," Rove said with a straight face, "the Congress does."

In a her blog yesterday, Arianna Huffington pointed out that Rove's take on recent history is a "shameless, remorseless, soulless attempt to rewrite history." But it is actually even worse than that because Rove did not "attempt to rewrite history" so much as he just lied about what happened five years ago. Rove was trying to throw his own dirty laundry at the Democrats (as he always does). And in the process he exposed for all to see his utter contempt for the American people. Rove obviously believes that Americans are so dumb they have no memory of what happened last week let alone five years ago. Therefore he can test the limits of the collective subjectivity of our political discourse, and the malleable nature of "truth," and just make shit up on PBS.

And this guy is going to be a regular columnist for Newsweek magazine?

Comments

[Rule Of Law]

Right on! But Bush will be impeached about the time the corporate media actually covers the story of the subpoenas, Kucinich's Impeachment, or the impending Depression.

If the story never makes it in front of the American People; if the MSM continues to black out any news that is negative about this administration, then the people must make their own news and hope that the blogoshpere will fulfill its promise. Some people did just that last night at Cornell. They called the Bush regime and its operatives on their criminality.

How can we make it so they can't duck us, are compelled to report it?

By resisting this Regime and the enablers of this illegal war and destruction of our constitution anddemonstrating against their policies and very presence, as the students at Cornell did just yesterday. You won't find it in the corporate MSM, but watch it here, then act!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxTcPM9HxBQ
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-siegel/creative-rebellion-corne_b_74892.html

[TomR]

I think there's a temptation to invoke some exciting-sounding language like "hyperreality" or to attribute Rove's actions to some new postmodernist trend when all I see being played by Rove and his ilk are the oldest manipulation tactics in the book.

What's going on is very simple. Trying to make it sound more complex than it is doesn't help us to address it. We are in a battle for the mental health of our country, given those who currently run it. This is about the crazy-making behavior of sociopaths filtering down onto our 3 branches of government and the American people.

Our focus should be on the enablers of it in the media, corporations, Democratic and Republican parties. When Nancy Pelosi promises Bush that no impeachment hearings will be held during the remaining portion of his term without consulting the American people and simultaneously ignoring her oath to protect and defend the U.S. Constitution, we've got serious problems folks.

- Tom

[klondiker]

Actually, the connection between Rove and Foucault is an interestting one, on several levels.

Jurgen Habermas was one of the first to argue that the so-called "neo-conservatism" of the 1970s and 1980s drew its inspiration heavily from "anti-modernists" like Foucault. In fact, he called Foucault, the "young conservative". I highly recommend Habermas's fascinating book The New Conservatism.

So, it is quite arguable that the intellectual foundations of neoconservatism can be traced partly to thinkers like Foucault.

[Joseph A. Palermo - Huffpost Blogger]

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Outnow's comments are spot on! The Clintons too are now in the midst of re-writing their own record on the run up to the invasion -- I was with 100,000s of my fellow citizens in the streets of SF at least 4 times before the launch of the invasion, including the massive global demonstration on Feb. 15, 2003 -- and did the media or politicians pay any attention to what we were saying? No -- now there's a lull in the violence after this illegal invasion and seizure of an Arab nation with 112 billion barrels of oil, so pundits are declaring victory -- well, just wait until the katyshas begin falling on Green Zone, you'll hear how suprised O'Hanlon and Pollack are and how we must redouble the effort -- $1 trillion? $2 trillion? Hell, let's throw $3 trillion at Iraq, I mean, it's only public tax payer money and they'd probably spend it on frivolous things like health care for children anyway -- yeeehaw! While the media follows the 2008 horse race Bush is going to quietly cement his transformation of the Defense establishment -- called "long term" planning for the Pentagon -- So it goes.

[HarkaDahl]

"Rove obviously believes that Americans are so dumb they have no memory of what happened last week let alone five years ago. Therefore he can test the limits of the collective subjectivity of our political discourse, and the malleable nature of "truth," and just make shit up on PBS."

Roves extraordinary success at working by the above described methods should give all Americans cause to stop and think....

[realpolitic]

Yes, Orwell's jaw has been dropping often with this administration. Rove and his bunch do have much in common with the fascists of the 20th century. They look at our democracy as a nation of sheep that can be led by sloganeering "compassionate conservativism", and by simply repeated lies often enough until they become the truth.

Rove is the master puppeteer and Bush is controlled as Rove pulls the strings. This administration has always considered the press just another special interest group. White house aides said so. The press, instead of reacting by tough coverage, responded by fawning for access and wagging its collective tail.

The administration also downplayed the press and all "reality-based" journalism as passe'. Again, higher-ups told us so. They would create "reality" and we would simply respond and accept their stories.

It is a scary thought. Truth becomes fiction and may morph again into truth. Blunders become significant achievements. Bush becomes a thoughtful statesman waiting to play the last diplomatic card in the face of a hostile Congress, instead of a cowboy having fun pulling the strings of power.

Rove is a loser. History and we now are not dumb enough to look past his contempt for democracy and processes; his leaving his muddy footprints all over the constitution.

Bush is a loser, as well! Never fit to govern tempermentally or intellectually, and hopefully, he will go down as one of the worst presidents ever. In this modern information age, with so many experts at a president's beck and call, to be such a poor leader is a significant achievement.

Rove and Bush are anachronisms. Hopefully, our democracy will not have to respond to an internal crisis of this making again by future incarnations of the two men. As most of our past president's have, those in the future will again find respect for the rule of law.

Rove is the equivalent of an evil angel whispering in one's ear, telling one to do the wrong, morally compromising thing. Bush has always readily followed his Draconian advice.

[Joseph A. Palermo - Huffpost Blogger]

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I think it is unfair for anyone to conclude that I do not understand Foucault based on the fragment I've provided. Besides the fact that Foucault purposely wrote in an opaque, sometime stylistically atrocious, manner giving his readers maximum flexibility to interpet his thoughts I wouldn't think anyone should come across as an "expert" given the contested meaning of his thoughts -- you might be an "expert" on Foucault in your own mind only. The interminably elitist Lit-Crit types always try to circumvent their own little world around Foucault and then tell anyone who might offer a novel interpretation or (heaven forbid) a critique of the great white European man - Foucault - then they could be dismissed as not "understanding" Foucault. Believe me, in grad school I had my fill of Foucault and Derrida and Lacan and Lyotard and Baudrillard and Bourdieu and others -- some ideas are useful in social analysis, others in literary criticism, some good for historians, others useless for historians -- so there's a lot there and to conclude someone doesn't understand is just elitist rubbish that Foucault supposedly stood against -- why was Foucault involved in reforming the prison system in France if he didn't believe in human agency or "truth."

[outnow]

After 9-11, "being tough on terror" was really the "in" thing. Clinton trusted Bush, she claims and felt that there would be some conditions precedent to the attack. But Scott Ritter claims that Bill Clinton didn't want to hear that Saddam Hussein had no WMDs. I've read Hillary's speech but it seems to me that she and Bill Clinton both knew as early as 1998 that there were no WMDs bu that they wanted to keep the sanctions going. But Bush was gung ho. I listened to him and Tony Blair make the case. I watched his administration deceive the UN with Curveball's prevarications and allegations of aluminum tubes and forged Niger Uranium documents.

Rove is lying. I am in the business of evaluating evidence and making arguments. My wife is to. We watched the arguments being made and determined that there was a hurry up con job going on. So why did Rove out Plame if there was not a snow job? Why did Rice say we couldn't wait for the proof? The Downing Street Memo, the forged Yellow Cake documents based on a break in before 9-11, wrapping the facts around the policy. The PNAC declaration, Cheney's energy policy meeting notes that carved up Iraq two days after taking office. No, Rove lies.

[leftLibertarian]

Not only Rove but most of the politicians in major both parties running for President(save Ron Paul) exude governmentality the dramatic expansion of the scope of government, featuring an "increase in the number and size of the governmental calculation mechanisms."

Foucault would be very critical of Rove and the Clintons, - as they, in their own way, wish and have extended the power of the state in every party of our lives, - since I view him as a libertarian who was very critical of the state.

No government, no masters, - Tom Paine

[HatingTheGame]

Hey, how come these posts are being moderated, and not appearing as they're posted -- Foucault was all about discourse and power, and using this "administrative" power to administer what's posted and not posted is classic Foucauldian.

Foucault is over-rated because those that rate him (meaning most of the folks in the University) are disconnectd from the realities of everyday life (aside from having to pay rent, buy groceries, and order lattes, which everyone does).

Those that have read Foucault (and understand him), and are engaged in the every day world are much better equipped to understand the power of his thought and ideas.

He is in line with Nietzche, but also Weber, Marx, and Deleuze. He is anti-Freud, so your psychoanalysis of Rove and his mother and father would not appeal to him, although I do see some value in that (as do I see value in understanding W vis a vis his relationship to his father).

Foucault was very pessimistic about our modern world, but, as he put it, he was a hyperactive pessimist -- following Marx's dictum that the task of the thinker is not only criticize the world, but to change it.

Again, bravo for expanding our discourse! Shame on you for censuring. Our academics have to learn to take a hit as well as dish it.

[Joseph A. Palermo - Huffpost Blogger]

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On last thought: perhaps if our political culture was a bit more old school "modernist" we would be able to detect lies and hypocrisy better (just a theory) -- I think with the disjointed images and text we encounter each second it has become much easier for Bush/Rove types to simply construct their own "reality." I mean, just look at Fox News, it's a frightening cacophony of disjointed images with a propagandistic aim to lull the citizenry to sleep -- as Walter Lippmann and others have pointed out, a society unable to detect truth from lies is on its way to tyranny.

[HatingTheGame]

Whoa, never thought I'd see Foucault on a mainstream (even if not so mainstream) news and information blog, even if the author doesn't understand what Foucault says, and completely misreads him (you can't have a discussion of truth without a discussion of power, and Foucault's understanding of power is much more nuanced than what the parameters of our current political discourse allows).

At any rate, I agree with the rest of his assertions about Rove et al., and our revisionist fascist streak in modern politics.

Hmmm, maybe this whole French renaissance and love with the Sarkozy is beginning to affect American sensibilities, and there is a chance for elevated public intellectual discourse.

Um... naw. We're still dumbfuck Americans. Let's get back to watching Idol and endlessly debating about irrlevent and stupid distractions as if they should be the core of our human concerns.

Now that would be post modern, n'est pas?

[Joseph A. Palermo - Huffpost Blogger]

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I was hoping this paring of Rove and Foucault would spark some discussion and it sure did -- I do have a tongue in cheek quality about this -- I just wanted to express that these reactionaries like Rove are truly products of the 21st C -- or maybe he's just an old school fascist with "futuristic" ideas -- the Nazis would have burned all of Foucault's books, and of course his sexual orientation would not sell well at the Republican caucuses in Iowa -- which is another irony, since Rove has done more damage to the civil rights of gays and lesbians in this country than anyone in U.S. history. He won an election on gay bashing in 2004, pure and simple. His father skipped out and he was raised by a gay stepfather -- his mother committed suicide in 1981 -- I guess Rove has issues with gays and women -- so it is fitting to strike him over the head with the Foucault thing I think. I like poststructuralism as a tool of analysis when interpreting film, literature, the media, and art -- it is weak though on helping us understand something like Halliburton and Blackwater.

[Joseph A. Palermo - Huffpost Blogger]

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I mean I in NO way meant to insult Foucault who I think is a very interesting thinker, though over-rated, whose ideas complement Nietzsche's Geneology of Morals (where I think Foucault got most of his big ideas).

[Joseph A. Palermo - Huffpost Blogger]

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To all, I in now way intended to insult Foucault by lumping him together in a piece with Rove as the subject. I think the commentor who mentioned the surveillance state and Discipline and Punish is on to something. I find it ironic, though I didn't include it in the piece, that rightists like Lynn Cheney and David Horowitz have been hyperventilating about postmodernism in the colleges, which they see as a politically correct totalitarianism that must be stopped, when their political operatives like Rove and Coulter and Malkin and O'Reilly and other pathological liars are proving postmodernism correct vis-a-vis the mallealbe nature of "truth." They're a bunch of Foucauldians and don't even know it! I was thinking that just as Existentialism had rightwingers as well as Left, mayby postmodernism has a similar split -- which means that the right-wing postmodernists like Rove have a lot in common with Fascists and Nazis in the mid-20th C. As Kurt Vonnegut would say, "So it goes."