Reading the Right on Rove

We liberals are frequently accused by the right of only listening to views we find congenial. (This accusation is usually made by people who watch Bill O'Reilly, listen to Rush AND read the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal...oh, never mind.)

Well, good liberal that I am, I honestly try to pay attention to voices from the Right. I somehow got on the mailing list of NewsMax.com, an odd combo of right-wing politics and alternative health advice. I mostly hit the delete key when its daily musings arrive.

But I couldn't pass up reading a piece titled "Karl Rove's Timing Is Perfect." I thought of just passing it along without comment. But, over-educated elitist snob that I am, I just had to interpolate some snarky reactions to the most fulsome bits of praise for the enormous contributions that Karl Rove has made not just to the Bush presidency but to the country.

The view from the far right...NewsMax.com Analysis: Karl Rove's Timing Is Perfect Ronald Kessler Monday, Aug. 13, 2007

Karl Rove's decision to leave the White House at the end of the month makes perfect sense.

Besides getting a huge advance in a book deal, Rove will be contributing to President Bush's legacy

Doesn't he think he's already contributed enough to "Bush's legacy"?

by writing a book that will be more widely read if it comes out when Bush is still president.

As part of shaping Bush's legacy, he is going to be one of the key planners of the Bush library, where he will have a prominent position. Rove is a brilliant student of American history, surpassing the most erudite history professors. He will relish comparing Bush with other presidents.

Yes, especially with his personal favorite, William McKinley. Of course the McKinley presidency ended on a far happier note--for the country--than we are likely to get with GWB.

Rove will still be available whenever the president needs his advice.

Ah! More executive privilege.

In the meantime, Ed Gillespie, as counselor to the president, has begun to provide political advice that Karl otherwise might give.

At Gillespie's urging, Bush has responded more aggressively to attacks by the Democrats on his war policies and has taken them on over excessive spending.

Democratic excessive spending--terrible. Republican excessive spending--Karl's Rove's major contribution to the Bush presidency. It's why true conservatives hate him almost as much as us liberals.

Pushed by Gillespie, Bush has made more public appearances.

Smart toadies always tell the boss that what is needed is more of the boss's personal touch.

The fact that Bush flew to the site of the bridge collapse in Minneapolis shows he has learned since Hurricane Katrina that for political reasons, a president must make such appearances.

What a quick study our fearless leader is! God forbid mere compassion might impel him to do so.

In an interview with Paul Gigot, who broke the story of Rove's resignation in the Wall Street Journal, Rove denied that his departure now is intended to avoid congressional scrutiny.

No, he's made it clear that he can duck subpoenas just as easily now that he's a civilian. Time will tell if his view is correct.

"I know they'll say that," Rove said. "But I'm not going to stay or leave based on whether it pleases the mob."

Is that a lynch mob, Karl?

As a political strategist, Rove's job was to advise Bush what programs, policies, and campaign promises would sell well. Rove was critical to fashioning Bush's two election victories.

When Collister "Coddy" Johnson first began working for the Bush campaign in 1999, he had the task of drafting a letter from Bush to Iowa farmers. Johnson was in Rove's office on the first floor of campaign headquarters in Austin when Rove read his draft. Rove wrote a few notes on the letter and handed it back to Johnson. At the top, Rove had written, "Purpose?"

"What do you mean by 'purpose,' sir?" Johnson asked.

The first political campaign where colleagues were called "Sir"--at least since Henry Cabot Lodge ran for the VP-ship.

"If you mean the thesis, I think it's right there, in the last line of the first graph - the thesis, I mean."

"The thesis, eh?" Rove replied. "Well, if that's your Ivy-league language," he said to the Yale graduate, "let's talk about theses, antitheses, and syntheses," using philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's formulations.

So glad to learn that Karl can sling Ivy- League language with the best of them.

"Where is the tension in the letter? How do you drive the purpose, its synthesis, from that tension? I don't see it, and I don't think the second and third graphs carry it."

Johnson, who became national field director of the 2004 campaign, walked back to his desk, recognizing that the letter was dull and somewhat amazed that Hegel had just been quoted in a campaign office. In the White House, Rove participated in every significant decision with the exception of issues involving the war and national security.

Translation: Don't try to pin Iraq on me--that one's Cheney's.

"Karl will participate in many types of decisions by giving strategic and political advice," Alberto Gonzales told me when he was White House counsel.

Unfortunately, Atty. Gen Gonzales has no specific recollection as to what that strategic and political advice was.

"For example, Karl may tell the president this is what we believe will be the public reaction in certain parts of the country to a particular decision. However, the decision to go to war was not driven by Karl's political advice."

In case you missed that earlier mea non culpa.

The press dubbed Rove "Bush's Brain," suggesting that Bush had none. "Karl Rove thinks it, and George W. Bush does it," James Moore and Wayne Slater said flatly in their book "Bush's Brain." But it was Bush who decided how to meld Rove's political advice with his own principles and advice from policy aides about the content of programs.

Gee, I wonder which won--the political advice, the policy advice or the "principles"?

While they are friends, it was always clear who was boss.

You mean Turd Blossom didn't have his own little pet name for the President?

Occasionally, Bush would bring Karl up short. Seeing reporters gathered around Rove on the presidential campaign plane, Bush said sarcastically, "Is the Karl Rove press conference over yet?" But when Bush discussed ideas with other aides, he would ask, "What does Karl think?"

Of this I have no doubt.

While the media delight in deriding Bush's brain, it was that same brain that recognized Rove as perhaps the greatest political tactician in American history.

One could say that getting Bush elected twice just might qualify him for that appellation. However, what will the legacy of hatred, contempt and revulsion for the Bush years come to mean for the boy genius's reputation?

Now Rove has taken his own tactical advice on when to leave. His timing, as usual, is perfect.

Provided the name "Karl Rove" is spelled correctly on the pardon.