Karl Rove

I’ve never been of the belief that Karl Rove was a genius. I’ve always held the opinion that he was just inconceivably sleazy, on a level that no one could see coming. My opinions have all been upheld this week.

Before I get into the events of the past week, I want to go into how my opinion of Karl Rove as a sleazebag with average intelligence came to be. Karl Rove isn’t a brilliant strategist. He’s a street fighter. A strategist comes up with solutions and long term plans. Karl Rove has historically created chaos to remedy problems. He’s never actually created a strategy, beyond deflecting the problem in front of him at that moment, with no regard to long term consequences.

One of my favorite examples of Rove’s sleaziness goes back to when W was running for Governor of Texas. A few days before the election, Rove called the media to let them know that a bug was found at campaign headquarters. The media showed up in time to watch the FBI remove a bug from the Bush for Governor offices. This, naturally led voters to the assumption that Ann Richard’s (the wildly popular incumbent Governor) campaign had planted the bug. This swung the election in W’s favor. A few weeks after the election, the FBI issued a report that said that the battery on that bug had been depleted by 15 minutes at the time that they seized it. So in 15 minutes time, this bug was planted, discovered, and the media and the FBI got wind of it? Nice work, Karl. But was that genius, or the kind of sleaze that no rational person could have been prepared for?

Remember when Dan Rather was fired from CBS over his reporting on Bush’s questionable military service? I honestly don’t know how CBS missed the fact that the memo they had was a forgery. That was definitely their fuck up. What no one seemed to talk about, was the fact that the week after the story aired, they interviewed the secretary that typed the original memo. She said that the fake memo was identical to the one she had typed for her boss, Lieutenant Colonel Jerry Killian. How would that be possible, unless the forger had the original memos? That had Karl Rove’s fingerprints all over it. Okay, I’ll have him a little credit for genius on that one, but it was still 90% sleaze and 10% genius.

Now onto the events of the week. I’m sure you guys all heard the clips of Karl Rove referring to Christine O’Donnell as a nut, and pointing out that she is unelectable. Here it is, in case you missed it:

I especially love the part fifty seconds in, where Rove takes exception to O’Donnell baselessly lying about her opponents’ sexuality. Really Karl, you’re opposed to pulling any shit you can out of your ass in order to win? Since when?

But did you watch him bow his head to the very nutbags he created, after he got spanked by Michelle Malkin, Rush Limbaugh, and Sean Hannity?

Here’s Michelle “anchor baby” Malkin putting Rove on the sidewalk like yesterday’s trash:

Oh and here’s dumb little Sarah Barracuda pointing out that Karl Rove is an irrelevant relic. Just another part of the “machine” that she and her “real patriots” are fighting:

I like how she’s basically patting him on the head like a child, while telling him to go outside and play.

And here’s the nubbag herself, laughing at the mention of Karl Rove’s name:

How does it feel Karl, to be dressed down by an illiterate whack job? She thinks that un-factual is a word Karl. She used hillbilly English to mock you. Do you feel like an asshole yet?

An illiterate whack job that you empowered. Your brilliant “strategy” for creating a (HA!) permanent republican majority has brought you to this place where you’re being marginalized by the dumbest among us. You’re being Roved by the people that you assumed were puppets in your “brilliant” strategy to harness the wingnuts because you couldn’t win any other way.

Now watch him grab his ankles, after having been spanked:

They’re laughing at you, Karl. You coaxed them out of the shadows, and now they’re mocking you. Karma is a bitch, and you were an idiot if you didn’t see this happening.

Your legacy isn’t going to be one of a brilliant strategist. You were a one trick pony, whose only tactic was to anger, and then harness the anger of the least informed among us.

Few things make me as happy as watching you get what you deserve. Seriously, I’m almost orgasmic with joy when I watch you being mocked by the Frankensteins you created. And thank god for that, because when Christine O’Donnell outlaws masturbation, I will still have an alternate means with which to achieve my goal.

They actually reached code red a long time ago.

Here’s some video of code red at a Karl Rove book signing in Los Angeles on Monday:

Much to my dismay, after watching this I had to side with Rove. It’s hard to throw in with angry, red faced lunatics no matter what they’re saying. It’s hard for me to throw in with them, but I fear that it’s not hard for everyone. You wanna know who posted this video on youtube? Well, several people posted it, but the copy that I embedded was posted by Michael Moore. Given that Michael Moore has been prone to this type of behavior, I took his posting of this video as an implicit endorsement of the behavior contained in this video.

In my opinion, condoning this type of behavior, implicitly or otherwise hurts the message. It turns the conversation away from the facts and moves the focus to the tactics. Karl Rove’s response to what code pink did, “…this goes to show the totalitarianism of the left.” was 100% correct. There’s no arguing against the point that he made, given what everyone witnessed. They managed to turn a calculating liar into a victim. Nice job code pink. Not only didn’t anyone hear what you have to say, but you managed to make anyone else that says it into a whacko.

They should have made an attempt at civilized discourse. Ask him a question and then politely wait for him to answer it before asking the next question. I’ve watched Karl Rove twist himself into a pretzel trying to “explain” the enormous amounts of evidence against him and the Bush administration. It’s not pretty, and he’s not very good at it. He does very well when confronted by angry people. As you saw in the video, he had to summarily dismiss the downing street memos. How much more effective would progressives have been if they then followed up by asking him about Lawrence Wilkerson’s account of the Colin Powell speech, making the case for the US to go into Iraq? And then a follow up question about General Eric Shinseki’s dismissal? How many sources do you think Karl Rove would have to dismiss before sounding like a jackass? Don’t you think that would have been a more effective approach? It would have made Karl Rove the subject of the reporting. What we ended up with was yet another story about crazy extremists.

It’s a slippery slope to extremism. People don’t start off as extremists. It’s something that happens slowly over time so that people don’t realize that they’re becoming radicalized. It starts by condoning crap like this.

Don’t let yourself fall into that trap. Republicans have boxed themselves in by doing the very same thing with the tea party racists. It’s not possible to speak out against the tea partiers while remaining silent about code pink without being a hypocrite.

You have to denounce this from the inside if you have any hope of stopping it. You don’t have to support everyone that agrees with you. So go out there and comment and denounce from the rational left! Let the right deal with their own crazy. If they dismantle it on their side, then good for us! If they don’t, we need to trust that cooler heads will prevail.

You Got Roved, Karl

Code Pink Has Reached Code Red