Still traveling, but I have a few thoughts on the whole Karl Rove business. We’re going to be seeing a lot of partisan Democrats and boring old liberals write articles swearing to Rove’s Machivellian genius, or at least going forth with that underlying assumption. I’ve written about Rove’s “genius” before. This is self-aggrandizing stuff, the desire to blow up an enemy to larger-than-life in order to explain away your defeats.
I can’t seem to find the quote on Google, but there was an article from a couple of years ago that pointed out what suddenly seemed rather obvious—Karl Rove is not smarter than the rest of us. He’s just more evil. His utter lack of sophistication is what tends to frustrate people. While most of us are out there talking about framing and polling and all that jazz, Rove spreads a rumor that his opponents like it up the butt and watches the numbers roll in. He’s simply willing to do what makes most human beings with a scrap of decency left recoil.
Think about it this way: The Bush administration has, in the past, treated Karl Rove like he’s some kind of genius. They’re basically wrong about everything else, so there’s no reason to think they’ve got the read on the situation here. His major political victories involve a lot of race-baiting and gay-baiting. The big time Rovian win of Bush over McCain in South Carolina was based on spreading redneck-friendly rumors that McCain was mentally ill and that his adopted children are black (and possibly the result of an affair with a black woman). In Texas, he helped Bush defeat Ann Richards by spreading rumors that she was a lesbian and using her position as governor to orchestrate a homosexual takeover of the Texas government. Yes, only stupid, mean, crass, evil, small-minded people fell for these tactics, but remember, Rove was trying to build a permanent Republican majority.
But who cares? From the Bush administration’s point of view, “cheap and evil” is better than “political genius” anyway. Rove is claiming he needs to spend more time with his family, the standard disgraced resignation message, but it’s possible that he’s not being driven out by a dissatisfied administration. This just might be a signal that they’ve given up all pretense of governing like they care about the political will of the nation, and instead will just be doing whatever they want without even trying half-assedly to sell it to the public.
35 Responses to “Karl Rove is not a genius”
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Great post. Excellent points, all. My neck hurts from the vigorous nodding-in-agreement.
This is a man who, let’s not forget, got his start stealing campaign letterhead from the office of Illinois state treasurer candidate Alan Dixon, on which Rove printed, “Free beer, free food, girls, and a good time for nothing,” then distributed them as a fake invitation to a political rally.
This was in 1970. And he learned at the knee of Donald Segretti, let’s not forget. And Lee Atwater was sometimes called Rove’s “mentor.”
The problem is that spreading a rumor that your opponents like it up the butt is effective politics.
Yes, only stupid, mean, crass, evil, small-minded people fell for these tactics, but remember, Rove was trying to build a permanent Republican majority.
Wicked!
I’ve never understood the linking of evil with genius, when it’s so clear that the vast majority of it is stupid fumbling. It takes no particular genius to be a fuckwit who hurts others, after all. Anyone can do it. You just need to not care.
I think Rove had certain important skills when it comes to politics - not the kind of deep insight that constitutes genius, but a natural touch for the tactical elements of politics. He (and others) mistook this for strategic brilliance, but that’s clearly not the case. Cheney is similar - an excellent tactician with broad knowledge of the mechanisms of power, but strategically blind as a bat.
So, in other words, Rove played it in a way that would respond to people like George W. Bush.
I dunno. It’s easy to do things when you lack traits such as ethics and morality.
Rovian politics is to create a strong, loud, powerful base, allow them to convince (intimidate?) their peers of their power, and to win through that way. And it’s still working, at least the first part. The 25% base or so, quite frankly, is more comitted to Bush now than ever.
The problem is that base, quite frankly, is fucking nuts. And the feed and care of that base requires things that make the GOP message basically an impossible sell. It takes literally ignoring a catastrophic event in heavily black areas to make the proto-racists happy.
And we all know how THAT went over.
It’s the little hammer hits that start to resonate that start to break down the wall that Rove tried to built..and at this point, the wall is pretty much ground to dust. His strategy would have worked, minus guys like Stewart, Colbert, Olberman and Cooper. (If you think that Cooper’s coverage of Katrina isn’t a large part of the fall of the GOP, you’re crazy. It was an emotional catharsis.) and to be frank, the progressive blogosphere.
I think the word Machiavellian is over- (and somewhat mis-) used to decribe this admin, and I’d prefer to reserve the word genius for those who actually contribute something to our shared humanity.
But Rove is hardly a bumbling hamfisted simpleton. He’s a bare-fisted, scheming bastard with very sharp instincts. It was inevitable the house would collapse on him eventually, given the circumstances; if anything, it’s amazing he lasted as long as he did. He’s a victim of his own high profile. Ensconced in the shadows, he would still be capable of packing a wallop with his greasy, often sophomorically-conceived — yet oddly elegant, in their brutish way — little tricks.
I mean, spreading the rumor someone likes it up the butt has very few moving parts, and very high effectiveness. Rove understands what the rest of us wrestle mightily with ourselves to deny: life really is eighth grade.
So, genius, no. Trench warrior with an eye for his opponent’s weak spot and a willingness to win at all costs — and the ability to do so to a great degree, if the pudding’s proof is to be believed; I mean, Christ, George W. Bush? Twice? — yes.
Good fucking riddance. (We can dream, can’t we?)
I mean, Christ, George W. Bush? Twice? — yes.
Well, once–SCOTUS gave him the other one. But the second one was even more impressive, because he took an obvious incompetent and helped him to a majority, not just a plurality.
Good point, Brian, although 2000 should have been a shoo-in for Gore, one would have thought. George W. Bush. I don’t know, Americans seem to like congenial idiots (witness Reagan, although he was Immanuel Kant compared to Bush).
Oh, God damn it, now, I traipse on over to Salon — I swear, I really do have a job, people — and there it is, right in the teaser to the lead story: Mayberry Machiavelli.
Ugh! Enough with the Machiavelli already! Leave the poor bastard rest in peace!
Godmonkey -
You see an incompetent boob elected as president and you think “gosh, someone must have been a genius to get this incompetent boob elected.”
I disagree. The 2000 election was a strange one by any measure, and Rove had very little to do with Bush’s “victory” in the end. Sure, he knew to pander to the church-goers and get them fired up and come out and vote, and yes, Gore should have been running on a platform of pure “look how great the last 8 years have been, I can give you 8 more of the same”.
But Gore didn’t run on that - he ran away from the record of the prior 8 years because he was afraid of “Clinton fatigue” that the beltway boys were saying everyone in the country had. Plus, he had to fight a faction in his own party who actually didn’t think that the previous 8 years had been so great at all and that neither Gore nor the Dems deserved to win at all.
Bush, OTOH, was backed by money men who saw a moldable commodity. And Bush himself was able to project this “inoffensive rube” quality that made people think he was a “likeable sumbitch”. Rove’s campaign techniques almost cost Bush the 2000 election in the end - he was saved by a screwed up ballot in Florida and a pliable Supreme Court, but if Gore had taken just one more state it wouldn’t have mattered at all.
Everything that Bush did from 2000-2004 was with his eyes focused on the 2004 election - and Rove almost lost that one too. His “pander to the base/everything is politics” strategy got Kerry within a hairs-breath of winning the Presidency. From a “war president”. After an unprecedented attack on US citizens on US soil. Kerry shouldn’t have had a chance, and any other President would have STILL been riding a huge wave of popularity. But Bush was back to 50% and almost lost.
Rove is no genius - he’s been luckier than Bob Shrum but that’s about it. The only thing he did differently was his willingness to drag our political process through the mud with him, and even that wasn’t nearly as effective as he claimed it was.
You know, part of appearing to be a genius is having world-class incompetents as your opponents. This is especially true if we look at the presidential campaigns of ‘00 & ‘04. The fact is that both Gore and Kerry ran tremendously poor campaigns.
The next Rove? It’s already here. George Pataki’s political career pretty much consists of those same tactics. Ask his opponent in the Peekskill mayoral race. Ask his mentor in state government, Mary Goodhue.
Exactly, Machiavelli understood that tactics always were in service of strategy. For Rove he took the tactics and thought they were strategy
“Rove is a genius” is merely a backhanded way of saying, Bush is a dolt and requires someone to think for him. Therefore, Rove has had to be smart enough to think for two people. Unfortunately, “genius” is the wrong word and it puts a positive spin on an awful reality. Rove is “devious” enough for two people and is why he’s been able to weasle his way through the last 6+ years.
Don’t forget to smirk the next time you hear, “Rove, the boy genius”. It’s code for, “Bush is a dumbass.”
Trench warrior with an eye for his opponent’s weak spot and a willingness to win at all costs
Opponent’s weak spots? Hmm. They attacked John Kerry, a decorated war veteran, on his war record! Put Senator Kerry’s war record next to President Bush’s and you begin to see my point.
As for a willingness to win at all costs, absolutely. Remember the story of when Mr Roves office was bugged.
The local DA concluded that “Rove had hired a company to debug his office, and that the same company had planted the bug,” according to one unnamed DA’s office source.
The filthy bastard can, at best, be credited with being a master of muddying the water. Have Karl wade in and au revoir clarity. And Americans are so fucking gullible.
Doesn’t that pretty much sum up this entire administration’s weltanschaung? [supercilious look of a man who just used a foreign phrase even though “worldview” would have worked just fine]Nony, your points are well taken and, for the record, I stated that Rove is no genius. In my estimation, he has decent aim with a fistful of mud and he can sell a used car to a Baptist hillbilly. It ain’t much, but it is something. I agree thoroughly about the Democratic campaigns — Kerry’s in particular disgusted me. If he runs this weak a campaign, I thought at the time, he doesn’t deserve to be president. Of course, it was hardly gratifying when my assessment was vindicated.
Anyone want to bet that Rove does a deathbed apology the way Atwater did? I believe the operative phrase in the Christian community is “Cheap Grace.”
For me, Karl Rove is a genius the same way that Mike Tyson was a great boxer. Tyson really had one trick — he’d get close to his opponent and deliver a knockout punch. And he was really really good at it — good enough to become the heavyweight champion.
But Tyson was a one-trick pony. As soon as he lost some of that early power and started getting into fights that required technique, he started losing. He was the heavyweight champ, but he wasn’t a great boxer.
That’s Rove’s specialty — deliver the sucker punch and watch your opponent try to shake it off. He’s got nothing else. Problem is, with our media, any attempt to shake it off gets squelched as they pretend, for example, that the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth were anything other than Republican operatives.
Problem is, with our media, any attempt to shake it off gets squelched as they pretend, for example, that the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth were anything other than Republican operatives.
And remember that the media’s “handling” of the Swift Boaters was just a replay of the smearing of Al Gore as a liar. Gore didn’t fight back as hard as I’d have liked, admittedly, but the media did a hell of a job amplifying Republican smears.
Well… I would say that Rove does have a bit of genius in knowing what to say that will resonate. You’re right, however: many people have had that kind of insight before. It’s just most people recognized the fundamental truth that it’s damaging to the country to use it.
This is what made me so desperate to change things (and so frustrated when I realized I can’t). This kind of attack politics is harmful to us all. When one side is not merely disagreed with, but demonized, then half of our ideas are gone, and our country splits itself in half. How can you seriously ask people to join others that they’ve just been calling traitors?
The worst part of it is, if your opponent loves the country, then they *can’t* use the same tactics… if both sides use them, the split goes deeper.
Since some folks have mentioned the media… this is one of the the things the Republicans have mastered. They know how to give reporters a story that the reporters report close-to-directly. I don’t know if they do that by having Republican supporters owning the media, or by spinning things in a way that reporters think will make good headlines. Whatever it is, the media is pretty easily swayed by the games the Republicans play. They faithfully reported that Gore was a liar, Kerry a flip-flopper and weak, that Howard Dean was crazy, etc..
Rove learned most of his tactics from Mark Hanna, William McKinley’s campaign adivsor, who really was intelligent, along with being pure evil. Rove is just copying the strategies that worked for Hanna.
Why all the hatred for Mark Hanna? Go read the biography of him by Thomas Beer. Actually seemed to be a pretty cool guy.
Rove is the purest example of a political psychopath since Joe McCarthy—a guy who will say or do anything for a vote. One of the drawbacks of democracy is having to endure such people.
In the immortal words of James Thurber, “You can fool too many of the people too much of the time.”
“a guy who will say or do anything for a vote. ”
But, but…we’re only supposed to worry about North Carolina Democrat [sic] DA’s abusing their prosecutorial power for cheap votes…no Republican would possibly consider something so despicable.
/sarcasm
Karl Rove is the Keyser Söze of American politics: he is willing to do what the other guy won’t.
So.
True.
William Bennett (yeah, him, must have been taking a breather from the tables) was expounding on CNN or NBC (can’t remember which) about Rove’s political genius.
Genius, my sweet apples! Utter lack of morals and integrity is more like it.
Rent “Bush’s Brain.”
It seems some people believe Rove planted a bug in his own office and called the police to make the populace think his opponent was bugging his office.
It seems some people believe Rove began a whispering campaign that McCain had an illegitimate baby of color to defeat McCain in the S.C. primary (nothing like playing the race card against a man who adopted children of a different color).
It seems some people believe Rove is Lee Atwater’s successor in the politics of dirty tricks.
Some people even believe Rove played shenanigans with his College Republicans elections.
If Rove’s a genius, Ted Bundy had superpowers.
On the Daily Show just after the Democrats’ 2006 election victory, I remember Jon Stewart hyperventilating about how the whole ‘victory’ was just another insidious plan by Karl Rove to destroy the Democratic Party! It was the punchline for a joke that had been building up for years, and I couldn’t stop laughing.
“The chief weapon of sea pirates, however, was their capacity to astonish. Nobody else could believe, until it was too late, how heartless and greedy they were.” -Breakfast of Champions
That really is, and has always been, Rove’s power.
The thing about Rove that has impressed me (yes, impressed) is his ability to take a candidate’s greatest strength and make it into his greatest weakness.
In one of Rove’s early campaigns, the incumbent was a judge who had a sterling reputation as a champion of children’s issues. Most people would give their opponent the courtesy of acknowledging his leadership on an issue like that, or at least stay away from the issue so as not to burnish the opponent’s image by talking about it. But that would be treating a strength as a strength.
Rove’s solution? Start a whispering campaign against the judge saying he’s a pedophile. Now all those heartwarming pictures of the judge surrounded by cute smiling children suddenly take on a sinister look. Now that judge has to say over and over, “I am not a pedophile!” or risk looking weak on the Pedophile Question. Now the question of whether the judge is a pedophile or not becomes a Controversy. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire, right? The smoke only has to last until Election Day. Then there’s a new judge, and a person with a lifetime of dedicated public service is out of a job and his character is permanently tarnished by association with the Controversy.
You saw it again with the Swift Boating of John Kerry. A man who served honorably in a war lost against a cokehead draft-dodger, because his war record, the root of his “electability,” was transformed into a liability instead of an asset. You have to admit it takes a certain amount of cleverness to come up with that.
Indeed, they did. All my confidence that Kerry at any rate would win handily (in any remotely honest election, anyway) was based on my belief that W had created a solid “anyone but Bush” by his actions. After the Dem convention I became convinced that Kerry might in fact make a decent President–but in part that’s because the standards are now so low. Just as Tom Tomorrow has mocked Matt Drudge as “someone who scooped a story, once,” Kerry was basically “someone who has a few times in his life shown some integrity and intelligence.” Which would be a big step up. And yet, not so much really.
Gore on the other hand has a lot on the ball, and is a decent guy.
So why did they fumble so badly?
I really think we are looking at the playing out of deep ideological currents here, which run in conjunction with the class structure of power in this country. The very reasons I think Clinton, Carter, Gore, Kerry–heck, even Dukakis (I draw the line at Mondale though, even though he’s the first Presidential candidate I ever voted for in a general election…) were and are better than their rivals are directly related to why they come across as weak-willed, vacillating, shifty, even insincere. Their reactionary rivals have the advantages of the qualities Rove distills–a combination of fact-proof True Belief and ruthless hunger for power, which makes them immune to moral qualms and fitting intstruments of the collective interests of capital.
Now the Dems are also instruments of the collective interests of capital, but even the worst of them do insist on a less instinctive, more intelligent and balanced view of what those interests ought to be. They are more in touch with the Capraesque self-image of US ideology–but less so with the real bases of power.
A strong progressive leader must be unafraid to cut themselves loose from those ideological moorings to our past that have become clearly falsified. They must look ahead, not back, to a new form of populism, which is the only countervailing force to greed. Not erudition, not wonky cleverness, not gentle soothing words–not even strong and unbending ethics (if any US politician could get anywhere encumbered with those!) can stand up against the influence of the powers that be–only a positive vision of new powers that could be can do that.
It is a funny thing how in the sense of which party is innovating (albeit in appaling ways) and which one appeals to doing things the way we used to do them in the past, that the Democrats are the true conservatives and the Republicans are the radicals. One might even say that the Republicans are “progressives,” if one bears in mind that progress need not be in a good direction.
It is the clear vision of the destination we should be progressing toward that is lacking among the anointed politicians; the boldest and best say deep change is needed and they are right so far–but they are clearly either unclear on where those will lead us, or too cautious to say it out loud. Either way, this is why they look weak and uncertain, and all the incredible folly of the Shrums and Rahm Emmanuels and so on follows logically from this lack of vision and desire to pass as not really so very different from the Democrats of the past.
Rove’s always been pretty terrible at one of the nitty-gritty parts of politics that I get excessively interested in — finding the right places to allocate last-minute money. In 2000 he threw a bunch of last-minute cash at California.
Karl Rove is not a genius, he is a criminal and a crook. In fact Rove and Hitler have a lot in common.
You really hit the nail on the head. Rove has the reputation he has because he pulled off some “victories” he shouldn’t have been able to win. The things he does to win (planting a bug in your own office to “discover” a few days before the election) are not difficult to think of. Most other campaign managers probably have thought about them as well and decided not to go there for essentially two reasons:
1. A sense of morality / decency / empathy
2. Fear that they will backfire : if exposed they SHOULD be even more damaging to your own campaign and also damaging to future campaigns you’re involved in.
The fact is there are and will always be sociopaths who are completely immune to #1. What really bothers me is how much the last few years have shown that #2 is almost completely negligible. The chattering heads who set conventional wisdom always want to let bygones be bygones. The day after the election, the attitude becomes “who cares who actually planted the mic? Who cares where the rumor of McCain’s illegitimate black child started? It’s over.” And all the future Rove wannabes are learning this lesson as well.
Obviously the same principal applies beyond mere elections. The Bush administration doesn’t need to keep all the evidence of illegal activity corked forever. They just need to stall until Jan. 1 2009, and then anybody who says “hey, maybe some of these crimes still need to be punished even if they aren’t happening anymore…you know, kind of like how it works for everybody else in the world” will be painted as vindictive, backwards looking partisans.
I actually like the meme that Rove is a genius. The unspoken assumption, the hidden premise that makes his alleged genius a fact, is that Bush is a fucking moron. It would take a genius to get that coke-head elected. . .TWICE.
The smarter Rove is alleged to be, the stupider Bush is admitted as being. I can’t even name Reagan’s campaign manager; he at some sort of record to run on.
Bush? Nothing. Coke-head.
His manager MUST be a genius.