One more time now ..... Rove is not a genius .....

[Stinky The Clown]

.... he is a soft, pudgy, balding, evil little prick of a man with no scruples and a good mind for very dirty tricks.

But ...... he can't walk on water. Self levitation is outside his personal 'realm of the possible.' He may have been trying to turn water into wine and lead into gold, but all with no good outcomes.

He also can't make a self-loathing gay congressman write predatory e-mails and instant messages 10 or 15 years ago, encourage him to do it as recently as just a few weeks ago, and then leak it at just the right moment. Neither can he induce Kim the Klown to light off a nuke on cue. He's also quite incapable of having an aide resign and then spin the background to good effect.

What he *is* good at is making the best of shitty situations. We know that about him, too. But, at this point, he seems just a bit out of gas. And the shit of late is shittier than normal.

Watch him closely? To be sure. Fear him? If that floats your boat. Credit him for the newz du jour? No way, Jose.

As already said ...... he's pretty much outta gas.

[gully]

1. True, Goebbels was a genius

Rove is a "copy cat."

[acmavm]

2. Rove was nothing more than a dirty trickster who was really

good a liar.

That only goes so far. He's had a longer run than he should have ever been allowed to have.

[stepnw1f]

3. He's a "Dirty Ammoral A-Hole"

He is willing to stoop to any level for gains.... most aren't. That does not make the man a genuis... that makes him ammoral.

[Cosmocat]

12. That's it ...

in a nutshell ...

He got into a game where there were fairly well established grey areas between clear white and black ... They say politics is a dirty game, but there still was a line ... This guy has NO problem operating WELL in the black that other before him chose to not operate in ...

He is guilty of two things ... Foisting this crew on this country, and all the damage they have directly done ... AND, lowering the bar in politics to a near dysfuntional level ...

[Debs]

20. Exactly

People like him come along periodically. They just go blithely along as if the rules don't apply to them and they eschew all standards of decency while pursuing their goals. This will allow them to accomplish things, this does NOT make them geniuses. Usually eventually the stink from their putrid acts catches up with them or they over reach. Rove has been fortunate to have a base of an electorate that is exceptionally brainwashed. For this reason he has not been held accountable.

[StClone]

4. I can agree with that, but he has a lot at his disposal

Money, legions of flying monkey quislings and power. It doesn't matter if he a balding POS or super genius HE is an unelected fanatic in power that I will not consider neutered until he is out of our Government.

[sutz12]

5. He has been very good at manipulating the news cycle.

Better than anybody else. Actually, the Clintons were pretty good at releasing things Friday afternoons. Rove learned that from them. Other than that, Rove has had an advantageous relationship with Ailes and Faux news. They have been able to get the talking points out to Faux quickly, and have had other new orgs quoting them, thus giving Faux a false image of "first and best." All that shit is wearing thin finally.

[Stinky The Clown]

6. With emphasis on 'has been'

Cuz he sure as shit ain't controllin' it these days.

[Ian David]

7. Karl Rove-- a big baby that has temper-tantrums

Here's Karl Rove interfering with the crew of an aircraft.

Remember: It's not a federal offense when Republians do it.

[trof]

8. A gutter fighter has a decided edge when

the rest of us are palying by Marquis of Queensbury rules.

[Stinky The Clown]

10. Actually .......

..... there are many of us who long ago disavowed further allegience to the Marquis.

[trof]

14. I hear ya'.

I just go for the balls now.

[onenote]

9. Rove made you say this, didn't he

[AtomicKitten]

11. I have to disagree.

He is an evil genius. His particular brand of gotcha negative politics has been quite effective to date. Hopefully, its efficacy has run its course. I do believe America has had enough.

[kanrok]

13. No, but he is something that roughly rhymes with "genius"

n/t

[damntexdem]

15. Idiot savant?

Only smart about undermining democracy.

[Recursion]

16. For a bunch of people who hate KR so much, we rarely look at...

...what he actually does.

What he does is this

1) Organizes his supporters in the media and gives them consistent talking points every day
2) Finds ways to frame issues that sound non-frightening to moderates but still give a *wink wink* to social conservatives
3) Petty but effective "dirty tricks" (voter suppression, smear campaigns, outing troublesome CIA agents, etc.)

Also notice that ever since the '04 election, this hasn't really been working for him. He's never been a strategic mastermind. Compare this to Gingrich, who is a strategic mastermind: Newt's vision was a generation-long Republican majority based on limiting federal revenue and spending, and a statist approach to family morality. Rove's vision is a generation-long Republican majority based on... well... keeping a generation-long Republican majority. He doesn't think big like Gingrich does, and he doesn't have the ideological fire that Gingrich does. What he has is a very, very disciplined crew and a good grasp of day-to-day tactics. Newt fell because he took too big a gamble for his cause in taking on the Big Dog like he did. Rove is falling -- and this may sound surprising to some -- because he didn't even have an ideology to gamble for, and power for power's sake doesn't motivate the base (and, if you think about it, the points he's putting out now are essentially, "vote for Republicans or Democrats will be in charge", which isn't going to get people to the polls like "vote for Republicans or gay flag-burners will cross the Rio Grande in droves" does).

He's not a genius; he's close to squandering the overwhelming Republican successes over the past 12 years. He's a good tactician with a decent pulse on the electorate; enough to know how much he can fire the right up without scaring everyone else enough to mount a unified opposition. Frankly, he would have been a lot more dangerous if he'd been kept at a lower level, running the mailing lists, getting the message out to the pundits, organizing the dirty tricks, and not stuck out of his depth in the bigger picture of strategy and vision.

[Stinky The Clown]

17. I completely agree with you about Gingrich

I have the utmost respect for Gingrich. I may not agree with him on much more than the date and time, but I do respect him.

Rove is just the grown up version of the kid who got too many wedgies at school and came to doing things behind people's backs to get revenge.

[Writer]

18. I very much appreciate this thread.

I can't remember when, but I started posting similar threads to this one or two years ago. At that time, when Bush's approvals were still at about 50%, I'd receive several responses that were along the lines of, "Don't underestimate him! You just wait! He'll fuck you over!" and other such defeatist comments. I found those responses especially galling, because I simply don't buy into the same propaganda models that most on DU buy into. It's a chicken or egg question: Before Rove was able to manipulate us, we needed to be in a manipulative state. After the terror attacks, we most certainly were. Now that we're not so much, his tactics are failing. The man sure as hell isn't a genius.

[hijinx87]

19. his background is pretty spotty

numerous colleges but no degree. viet nam draft deferment, despite only
being a part time student, and then promptly dropped out of school . . .

this is actually pretty interesting reading . . . . .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Rove#Personal_life_an...