Rove's exit

Posted: Tuesday, August 14, 2007 9:11 AM by Domenico Montanaro
Filed Under: White House

The New York Times on Karl Rove’s legacy: “Whatever history makes of Karl Rove’s role in the White House, his legacy as a political strategist can be measured in a presidential campaign that has already begun without him. A look at the roster of every Republican presidential candidate finds people who have worked with him, and they have brought some of his methods to this race. But Mr. Rove leaves the White House anything but victorious.”

The Washington Post’s analysis: “[F]ew people -- including his Republican allies -- believe Rove succeeded in what he set as his ultimate goal: creating a long-lasting GOP majority in the country that could reverse the course set 70 years ago by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.”

The Boston Globe’s Canellos writes, “Historians will probably long debate just how much Rove, the political guru, influenced the Bush administration's policies. But there can be little doubt that the administration's personality -- combative, unyielding, indulgent of its supporters and contemptuous of its opponents -- was shaped in large part by Rove's political philosophy.”

The Washington Times: ‘I'm about ready to be unemployed,’ Mr. Rove said, laughing, during an interview with The Washington Times. He said he wants to spend more time with his wife, Darby, and their college-age son, Andrew. But he said he has ‘no idea’ what he'll do besides that. ‘I may do some of the speaking tour for a little while, but I really need to sit down and figure out what I'd like to do,’ Mr. Rove said. ‘I'd like to teach, but in the meantime, I've probably got to figure out something I can make some money at.’ Mr. Rove said he would not play "any formal role in the presidential election" of 2008, but indicated that he would not disappear either.”

The Boston Globe has this timeline of Rove’s life.

EMAIL THIS

Comments

Thanks, Jeffersonian Don. Dave - I have no problem with being honest about liberals. How did you like what I said about their counterparts, the rednecks. The liberals do need to eat some gunpowder, but as I said, they have a choice between putting up with the BS or taking it to the streets. If 200,000 people had felt like me in the 2000 election and we were organized, Bush would never have made it to the White House. That's just a guess. It's hard to say what would happen when reality sets in.
Desmond - right, I mentioned before that the people who own America couldn't allwo a Dem in the White House in 2000, because they needed to put some corporate flunkies on the Supreme Court and the top 1% wanted to harvest the 1/2 trillion dollars in the national surplus.
Rufus, DC and JWilson, Atlanta- thanks for the input.
nuanced - thanks for the critique. I am not a political junky like you probably are, but I don't read the Washington Post. Gergen has some function at Harvard. As I said, my post was just my best guess. I hope I didn't overlook anyone.

JIrby, Colorado (Sent Tuesday, August 14, 2007 5:53 PM)

Lee Holmes [[Smack in the middle of this mess, VP Gore suddenly decides that the Constitution has ''no controlling authority''to prevent him from dialing-for-Chinese-funny-money INSIDE of the White House,forgetting about the Hatch Act...]]

I see in the above nutjob conspiracy theory gibberish that the Hatch Act is mentioned. The Repubs tried to get Gore into trouble because he used the phone in his government office for some political fund-raising calls. If Gore did violate the law, a few hundred bucks in calls wasn't exactly a big deal.

But Karl Rove committed a far more serious breach of the Hatch Act: He went around giving PowerPoint briefings to federal employees on how to subvert the functions of their agencies to benefit Republican candidates in election years. Roves attempts to turn the federal government, including the Justice Department, into a subordinate branch of the Republican Party were one of his worst crimes.

Houston (Sent Tuesday, August 14, 2007 6:11 PM)

Mark Y:Through the offices of a DAILY KOS? I doubt it.

Lee Holmes (Sent Tuesday, August 14, 2007 6:30 PM)

Jirby, a poem for the rest of us

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth:

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

The Road Not Taken-Robert Frost

Desmond (Sent Tuesday, August 14, 2007 7:32 PM)

Karl Rove is retiring after serving the administration a bit longer than typical people in the same position. And here is the real reason.

He is going to do it for money. He is leaving his $168,000 annual salary and he's going to make as many $50,000 speeches as he can in between writing his book, with it's $1.25 million advance, and touring the country promoting it. All this will be done prior to the president leaving office, which is more effective for marketing than after he leaves.

He is going to play the same game as other politicians, presidents and political figures. We won't mention any names because it's unfair to bring up Bill and Hillary Clinton in the same context, because they are past history.

Hope he gets rich, because he really isn't at the present time. I'm going to help him by buying his book. Everyone deserves at least a chance equal to some former presidents at getting rich after leaving office.

I also hope it sticks in the respective craws of everyone who hates him so much.

Sorry, that's it. It's about money and exploiting opportunities.

Richard, Washington State (Sent Tuesday, August 14, 2007 7:45 PM)

Jirby and the rest of us ,if this goes through twice it is because my computer stalled. A poem for us.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equaly lay
In leaves no step had trodden black
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I__
I took the one less traveled by
And that has made all the difference.

The Road Not Taken-Robert Frost

Desmond (Sent Tuesday, August 14, 2007 7:55 PM)

Houston:What evidence do you possess that it was a ''few hundred bucks''? Your stance is based in BS. Gore was in fact found to be in violation of the Hatch Act by none other than Congress,and by your ''rightwinged nutjobs'' at ABC,CBS NEWS,The New York Times and the Washington Post.Gore skated. So will Rove.[which still beats making the Democrat Party the subordinate of the Peoples Republic of China anyway].

Lee Holmes (Sent Tuesday, August 14, 2007 8:10 PM)

They all look to have gotten drunk on power and crossed the lines. Lines they themselves would probably have wagged their fingers if others would have dared cross them prior to their omnipotence. Rove had good ideas such as we should have a stong DEFENSE and a RESPONSIVE READY counterattack if attacked. Unfortunately for us all they (over) responded to the feign jab and America is waking up now after the ten count. We need to learn to accept small attacks such as 9-11 as what they are relatively small and an appropriate response would have been to find Osama and do to him what we did to Saddam. Any butts that got kicked in that process of finding Osama would have been fair game. What we did was more like a Cheney hunting party. Sad. Traggic. Yes its time for the Republicans of this generation to sit down and take a TIME OUT until the next generation of Republicans learn from their mistakes. EXIT STAGE LEFT!

George Milton, Dallas, TX (Sent Wednesday, August 15, 2007 1:23 AM)

Thanks for the poems, Desmond. They look very similar.

Thanks for the poems, Desmond. They look very similar.

JIrby, Colorado (Sent Wednesday, August 15, 2007 2:41 PM)

JIrby, you're welcome!

JIrby, you're welcome!

Desmond (Sent Wednesday, August 15, 2007 4:23 PM)

<< Previous

SEND A COMMENT

PLEASE READ: All comments must be approved before appearing in the thread; time and space constraints prevent all comments from appearing. We will only approve comments that are directly related to the blog, use appropriate language and are not attacking the comments of others.

Message (please, no HTML tags. Web addresses will be hyperlinked):

Your name, city and state (John Doe, Seattle, Wash.):

Your e-mail address (jdoe@msnbc.com):

Your website (it's okay if you don't have one):

Remember me? (We'll keep it private) Remember me?

TRACKBACKS

Trackbacks are links to weblogs that reference this post. Like comments, trackbacks do not appear until approved by us. The trackback URL for this post is: http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/trackback.aspx?PostID=315890