Karl Rove to Resign

Karl Rove – political spinmaster and Bush’s most important advisor – will resign at the end of August. Shaun Mullen sent me an e-mail about the news, writing, “this story is a biggie and as far as I’m concerned, we can’t do enough on it.” I agree completely with him – if other authors have something to say about Rove’s resignation, they should write about it as well – this is an important development.

Rove’s explanation: “I just think it’s time.”

Shaun rightfully points out:

Rove, 56, is credited with engineering Bush’s successful entry into Texas and national politics and his dossier is full of allegations of dirty tricks and hardball dealings. He is currently a focus of several congressional investigations, including the U.S. attorney probe and whether he broke federal laws by making political presentations to government employees encouraging them to find ways to support Republican candidates.

Make no mistake: No matter what you think of him, Rove did his job well, at least until the realities of the world outside the Washington Beltway became so crushing that they could no longer be subsumed are talking points talked away.

Although I am not a fan of Rove – his tactic is one of “divide and conquer” – one has t admit that he is (was) great at what he does (did). He was able to get George Bush elected twice, he was able to – for a long time – let the Republicans form the majority in Congress… he was able to influence the media and popular opinion.

He was great at what he did.

However, he also made mistakes. He is involved in certain controversies and, sooner or later, history might come back to bite him in the butt. From that perspective, it might be wise for him to resign. For Bush, however, this could spell disaster. Without Rove, Bush loses his right arm, and possibly even part of his political brain. Rove is more than talented than any other political strategist in the Republican camp – it will be interesting to see whether he will continue to work behind the scenes, or whether his resignation will be a true resignation.

Shaun also writes:

In the end, Rove’s legacy is a tarnished one: He leaves behind a president whose popularity has plummeted to historcally low levels and a war in Iraq of which he was a principal planner that has become a political albatross for Bush and the Republican Party.

While I am sure that Rove excercised a lot of influence, and had a lot of power, I do not quite believe that he was a “principal planner” of the Iraq war. Rove was – first and foremost – a political strategist – his goal was to get Bush elected and then re-elected. Yes, he influenced decisions perhaps every now and then, political decision, but those decisions were more related to public opinion and forming a lasting Republican majority, than with going to war… or not. The principal planners of the Iraq war were other individuals.

For many liberal Democrats, Rove has become the person they all despise. They hate him. They consider him to be a snake. They think that he is evil. The list of bad descriptions they attribute to him, goes on and on. More than anything else, however, Rove is simply great at getting people elected. People have often accused him of being an idealogue: I am not sure whether that is correct. I actually think that Rove is not as much an ideologue as he is an opportunist. He obviously works for Bush, because he agrees with Bush on many things, but I do not think that he truly is a conservative in the idealistic sense of the word.

Although Rove brought Bush to power (office), and although he was very successful, it seems to me that, in the end, he has failed. His main goal was to establish a permanent Republican majority. He hoped to achieve this by dividing and conquering. In the end, however, a people does not like to be divided like that. They also want unity. And in a civilized world, name-calling might be successful up to a certain point, but you cannot get re-elected time and time again – once the bubble will burst.

Was Rove as evil – and as intelligent – as his opponents believed he was (and still is)? I believe he was not and is not. Rove too is a human being. He was successful for a couple of years, but in the end, he was not able to continue his winning streak. Last year, the Democrats won the elections, in 08 they will most likely win again. The reason for this is that Rove seems to believe that one can reach long term goals, by using short term means. With short term means I refer to the divide and conquer strategy, and to the “adhering to the base” and “no compromise” strategies. These strategies are successful – in a Democracy – only in the short run and, thus, only to achieve short term goals. Not long term ones.

In the end, that was Rove’s major mistake, and the cause for his downfall. He thought that enough spin would mean that the Republicans would win always, and could get away with just about everything. History – and the war in Iraq – have proven him wrong.

Will George W. Bush – an already weakened president – lose his remaining strength as well? Although he is certainly not stupid, he was dependent on Rove for his political strategies. Without Rove, many of Bush’s plans would never have materialized (he would not even have been elected of course).

The Democrats might – therefore – celebrate Rove’s resignation, but having a weak president is not good for anyone. Sure, Bush might have been too strong for a number of years, which allowed him to push through plans many now regret, but having a very weak president in charge of the world’s most powerful nation is not exactly great either. Opportunists will now have more power and influence, same goes for the Democrats. While some of you all might celebrate the latter, I am of the conservative school and I am – therefore – not exactly a big fan of the Democrats (neither of many Republicans by the way), whose sole political goal sometimes seems to be to expand the size of the government and to complain about everything, without truly offering any alternatives (or any good alternatives for that matter).

Also read dr. e’s take on Rove’s resignation.

Cross posted at my own blog.