The Rove Post-Mortem

So everyone's chiming in on the legacy of Karl Rove, with the broadcast media painting him as some sort of folk hero, and the print media a little more, how shall I say, reserved. Rove's stated goal, to cause a Republican realignment and an enduring majority, failed, and while the progressive movement had a very small hand in that, really the responsibility can be laid at Rove's feet. Elected Democrats can consistently be rolled - right up through a couple weeks ago - and made to bend to the President's will. The public soured on this experiment with one-party rule solely because the progenitors of it bungled things so badly. In a way this was inevitable, because the ruthlessness by which Rove won elections simply cannot be translated to governance.

Josh Green's Atlantic article really is quite amazing. I don't know if I totally agree that things only started to go downhill when Rove was put in charge of policy - Josh Bolten, his predecessor in the position, may be minimally competent, but he's chief of staff now and he doesn't seem to be able to right the ship. But clearly Green nails the real reason for Rove's failure - he's an autodidact, who thinks he is in sole possession of the facts and can counterintuitively predict everything that will happen on the political stage. When actual events spun out of his control, his default was to think "No, they're actually IN my control," therefore allowing him to ignore all warning signs or empirical evidence and go with his own subjective opinion. This can be expected of someone so dull-witted as to actually believe that William McKinley represented a transformative Presidency, and of someone to see in George Bush the qualities of a strong and brilliant leader. The defining characteristic here, as you can see on display in this paragraph, is one of raging arrogance:

Rove’s behavior toward Congress stood out. “Every once in a while Rove would come to leadership meetings, and he definitely considered himself at least an equal with the leaders in the room,” a Republican aide told me. “But you have to understand that Congress is a place where a certain decorum is expected. Even in private, staff is still staff. Rove would come and chime in as if he were equal to the speaker. Cheney sometimes came, too, and was far more deferential than Rove—and he was the vice president.” Other aides say Rove was notorious for interrupting congressional leaders and calling them by their first name.

People are citing the paragraph after this, about Dick Armey's little courtesy of getting Clinton to autograph his name tag when he visited the White House, and how Rove wouldn't let Bush do it, but I think this one is more descriptive. Rove believed that he was king of the world, and that Congressmen, who are no slouches in the ego department, should kiss his ring.

Now, there's rampant speculation as to why Rove left now. Certainly there are various scandals he may be trying to ditch in advance (For the record, Congress is still talking tough about investigating him). But I think it's because he needs to leave with that ego intact, before 2008 rolls around and the legacy of the Bush years becomes a realignment - in the other direction.

(as an aside, why did the Atlantic go and come up with an amazing September edition right at the time when I wanted to cancel it? The piece on Michael Gerson, another complete attention whore and arrogant bastard, is also a must-read.)