Hell has officially frozen over—Karl Rove is leaving the White House at the end of August.
“I just think it’s time,” Rove said. Time to cut the puppet strings, pack up his dirty campaign tactics and teach Bush to parrot someone else’s lines. Time for Rove to, um, spend more time with his family. Which has nothing to do with bailing out of an increasingly impotent and unpopular administration.
Post-White House, Rove plans to write a book about Bush’s presidency, which should be easy since Karl “Bush’s Brain” Rove planned and executed everything in the Oval Office since 2001. He also wants to teach, ensuring that his legacy of manipulating impressionable minds will continue.
Rove says he’s pulling out completely—no politics, no political consulting, no candidate endorsements. So let’s remember Rove at his best—not just as a ridiculously powerful and underhanded political advisor, but also as a killer MC:
Karl Rove is resigning. What a day for the American people. The man most responsible for the deep divisions in our country which have caused political stalemate for the past 7 years is gone at the end of the month. It is my hope that he will be remembered for his morally bankrupt political strategies, and the damage he did to our political system.
Rove's political strategy can be described as "divide and conquer." He would find weakness in an opponent's strength (such as Kerry's war service), and somehow gain political mileage out of it. He also is known for using issues that should have been non-partisan, like the War on Terror, into winning issues for the Republican Party. After 9/11, his strategy was to advocate as extreme policies as possible. This would force the Democrats to oppose legislation such as the Patriot Act, and the creation of the Homeland Security Department, and Rove could then turn around and label the Democrats as "soft on defense." He also played on prejudice by advocating a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage to turn out evangelical Christian voters.
The goal of politicians should be to bring out the greatness of the American people. Rove did the exact opposite, by playing on our fear and prejudice for political gain. I hope he can do what former Republican consultant Lee Atwater did, admit his sins and seek forgiveness from the American public.
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