Time's Up

Many people have been discussing Rove's departure from the Bush administration as yet another move on some political chessboard that is leading to some Hitchcockian endgame. I don't see it that way. Rather, I view Rove's retirement as an admittance of failure. Yes folks, that's right--Karl Rove failed, and he failed miserably. It's become vogue to look upon Rove as some sort of political genius: a Lex Luthor figure who's created a plan within a plan within a plan that will somehow lead to Superman's demise. But the truth is that what lay behind the magician's curtain was just a box with a bunny under a trap door. It was all the most flimsy and transparent of devices and we all fell for it like he was some sort of Oracle at Delphi. Sully sums it up best when he says:

"Rove is one of the worst political strategists in recent times. He took a chance to realign the country and to unite it in a war - and threw it away in a binge of hate-filled niche campaigning, polarization and short-term expediency. His divisive politics and elevation of corrupt mediocrities to every branch of government has turned an entire generation off the conservative label."

The only thing I would add to that is that the legacy of Rove (much like the legacy of Bush's whole administration) will be judged solely on their abysmal conclusion and their lack (or inability) of foresight, which, by comparison, makes Nixon look sagacious. Rove, by any means necessary, could get you that election--but what happened after that was, to him, irrelevant. They bit their noses to spite their faces, and then shrugged when no one could smell. But considering how much time and money is spent in the electoral process this tactic is the fashion and will continue to be the fashion as long as politicians are forced by the system to only see the forest for the trees and get reelected. Politics as usual.