The Pride and Prejudice

of Karl Rove

by Hank Edson

Karl Rove says he’s deeply proud and grateful to have been a witness to history; I’d be proud to be a witness at Rove's trial. It’s wishful thinking all around. Rove’s not a witness, but a participant in history. And if he had something to be proud of, he wouldn’t be resigning. The only testimony I can offer is that of an outraged citizen who believes Rove should not escape responsibility for his role in the disaster that is the presidency of George W. Bush.

If I can’t be a witness, I and the rest of the country at least now get to see what truths will come to light when Rove no longer can direct political cover-up and retribution from inside the White House. Perhaps we will all find out how hot the heat is that is forcing Rove to resign. It’s by no means the kind of career ending anyone wants who has spent a life in politics.

But the story of Karl Rove, we should remember, is not the story of his end, but of his beginning. Karl Rove is just one of a parade of soldiers trained by the Republican Party in the life of dirty, anti-democratic politics.

In 1971, Rove dropped out of school to become Executive Director of the College Republicans through the good auspices of George Bush Sr. His role model became Nixon’s political strategist, David Sagretti, who was later convicted as a Watergate conspirator. Under this warm tutelage in the Republican Party, Rove learned the art of the dirty trick. From fraudulently publicizing non-existent Democratic Party events in order to disappoint attendees, to rumors concerning the sexual orientation of a governor and the circumstances and race of a senator’s child, to bugging his own office to frame a political opponent, to the use of insinuating push polls, to the theft of the 2000 and 2004 elections, to the outing of CIA agent Valery Plame, to the politicizing of virtually every agency in the executive branch, Rove’s career leaves one long sleazy oil slick behind him, though witnesses that can incriminate him have remained hidden from view.

Rove is not the only Boy Genius to develop such a condemnable and anti-democratic legacy within the Republican Party. The College Republicans have created a number of disgraces to our national pride. Another mentor of Rove’s was former College Republican and George Bush Sr.’s dirty tricks man, Lee Atwater. Among other shameful contributions to the American political discourse, Atwater created the infamously racist Willie Horton ad that proved so effective in Bush’s campaign against Mike Dukakis for the presidency.

Then there was the trio of pals from their days as College Republicans, Jack Abramoff, Ralph Reed and Grover Norquist, who were at the center of the largest lobby scandal of the last several decades. Abramoff would shake down clients in the gambling industry for services they didn’t need. Then he would launder the money through Norquist’s organization, Americans for Tax Reform, so that it could be used to pay Reed for mobilizing Christian activists against competing gambling concerns without being traced back to Abramoff’s casino clients. Along the way, Norquist would take his cut for providing the money laundry services. Reed would then use his clout in the Religious Right to stir up opposition to gambling without telling his Christian activists he was being paid by the gambling industry. Abramoff was sent to jail, Reed became a political pariah, but neither Reed nor Norquist were ever prosecuted for their role in the fraud. All three were close associates with Karl Rove. Abramoff’s office was later found to have had over 400 contacts with the Bush White House before the scandal broke.

Both Abramoff and Norquist did stints as Executive Director of the College Republicans and apparently learned there the art of illicit political finance. During the time that Abramoff and Norquist were heading up the College Republicans, Congressman Jim Leach of Iowa held a press conference, announcing the findings of a study that found that the College Republican National Committee “solicited and received” money from right-wing cultist Reverend Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church in 1981. Norquist made a scene, disrupting the press conference and calling Leach a liar.

Finally, there is the rabidly self-righteous former Senator Rick Santorum who lost re-election in 2006 following his display of political grandstanding during the Terry Schavo episode and being implicated in the broader lobby scandal surrounding Tom Delay, Abramoff, Reed and Norquist. Santorum too got his start in the College Republicans. In September 2006, the Citizens for Repsonsibility and Ethics in Washington issued a report stating that “Santorum’s ethics issues stem from the manner in which he funded his children’s education and his misuse of his legislative position in exchange for contributions to his political action committee and his re-election campaign.” The report was entitled, “Beyond Delay: The 20 Most Corrupt Members of Congress.

Today, the warping of young and intelligent minds goes on as always inside the Republican Party. The most vivid recent example was the “Brooks Brothers Riot” that stopped the recount at Florida’s Miami-Dade polling headquarters in 2000 and played a decisive role in placing George W. Bush in the presidency unelected. Funded by Jack Abramoff, flown down on jets on loan from Enron, and almost certainly authorized by Karl Rove, young Republican congressional staffers posed as residents of Florida, demanding that the re-count not be allowed “to upset” the “legitimate” vote totals first reported. Waving fists in the air, banging on doors and windows, shouting “Stop the fraud!,” and warning that a large crowd of Cuban Floridians were on their way to support the protest, the young Capital Hill staffers intimidated local officials into closing down the recount. The scene was videotaped and photographed. Young fresh faces were caught on film engaging in fraud themselves for the purpose of undermining democracy’s most important event: the election of a president. According to the Washington Post, like Rove, the rioters today regard their participation in this fundamental betrayal of our democracy as a feather in their cap, listing it on their resumes and talking it up in job interviews.

That’s how someone like Karl Rove comes to be “proud” of his central role in the worst presidency in United States History. His worldview has been twisted since youth into a fundamentally anti-democratic, “win at all costs” commitment to the Republican Party crime family.

There is something deeply troubling about the stories surrounding these past leaders of the College Republicans suggesting that our political parties have no interest in nurturing the principled and intelligent idealism of our young people, but wish only to take advantage of their youthful ambition to corrupt them before they are old enough to appreciate the road they are choosing for themselves. It is as if the political leadership in our country takes our bright young people by the hand and says to them, “Look, you are too young to make a difference with your ideas; the grown-ups know what’s really going on and they don’t have time to indulge your principles. But if you want to help the cause, here’s what you can do…” And then they teach them the art of the dirty trick, the mindset of the anti-democratic insider bent on concentrating wealth and power, seeking to slant the political playing field in his favor any and every way he possibly can. The Party makes it fun and glamorous and instills in these young leaders a sense of superiority over the victims of their electoral con-games. At the end of the road, we have a country in ruins, a democracy in disgrace, and the President’s most senior political advisor, strategist, and campaign manager resigning, “grateful to have been a witness to history.”

Delusional pride is not the only psychological alternative available to these grown men who once were kids aspiring to be leaders of the Republican Party: remorse is another.

Lee Atwater after being diagnosed with a terminal disease in 1991 spoke of his remorse in an article published in Life Magazine. Apologizing for his past conduct, Atwater explained, “…what was missing in society is what was missing in me: a little heart, a lot of brotherhood….it is a truth that the country, caught up in its ruthless ambitions and moral decay, can learn on my dime. I don’t know who will lead us through the 90s, but they must be made to speak to this spiritual vacuum at the heart of American society, this tumor of the soul.” Like Rove’s pride, Atwater’s remorse remains twisted. In his statement of repentance, Atwater attributes to the rest of society the same corrupt spirit with which he pursued his “smashmouth” politics. Society may suffer the consequences of such corrupt spirit, but we are not responsible for its errors. Atwater and Rove would both like to see themselves now as aligned with society, as “witnesses” to history, rather than criminal perpetrators of it. There is nothing that can be done for these sad men now, but the time has come for Americans to demand that our political parties set strong ethical examples for the young people they take into their fold. We don’t want to repeat history in twenty years when the Brooks Brothers rioters are of an age to steal another election.

Copyright © Hank Edson 2007