But today, we must bask in the glow that is today's news' loving, warming, loving glow. Ladies and gentlemen, Karl Rove is dead...in the strictest political sense of the word. It comes seven years too late, mind you, but it came. The Common Man is going to take credit for Rove's departure, since it coincided with The Common Man's return to blogging last week. Aware that The Common Man was back, was going to be around for a while, and would be watching his every move like a hawk, Rove decided to get out while the getting was good. One of The Common Man's Big 10 Goals for 2007 has been accomplished. He will now cross "Force Karl Rove to resign" off of his list and move on either to "Paint the living room" or "Negotiate reunification of North and South Koreas," whichever he happens to get to first.
Of course, Rove's resignation makes any difference in the strictest sense for this White House. The President's term is just 17 short months from completion and he does not have the political capital to even control his own party. He is the lamest of lame ducks. Barring an unforseen resurrgence in the President's numbers, Rove's brilliant politicking would have made no difference. And even if that were not the case, surely the President has several Rove deciples still on the White House payroll and the Evil Chessmaster himself on speed dial.
Not surprisingly, Rove is putting a positive spin on his departure, saying that he had been contemplating leaving for more than a year. Asked if he was being "run out of town," Rove said that anyone claiming that would be "like the rooster claiming to have called up the sun;" which, of course, doesn't happen, because the rooster's calls are being monitored and he and the sun haven't spoken for more than a year. In the immediate future, he plans to "go dove hunting in West Texas with family and friends, then drive my wife and the dogs to the beach." Dick Cheney is said to be all packed for the farewell hunting trip. Afterward, he will be writing a book and teaching at the university level, he said.
Rove's legacy will be an interesting one. He never had a clearly defined position within this White House, maintaining the title of Senior Advisor. It's possible that no single non-President has had as much influence over a President and his administration than Rove has. He is a remarkable fund-raiser and election strategist who is widely suspected of playing a part in some of the more underhanded campaign attacks in recent history, including a notorious push-poll in South Carolina that suggested to voters that McCain had an illegitimate mixed-race daughter. His seeming embrace post-structuralist philosophy has given rise to Rovism, described by Los Angeles Times columnist Neal Gabler, where "All politicians operate within an Orwellian nimbus where words don't mean what they normally mean, but Rovism posits that there is no objective, verifiable reality at all. Reality is what you say it is."
Is Rove the downfall of modern democratic politics? Have his methods and strategies and antics so poisoned and polarized the American political spectrum that there can never be consent, never be nonpartisanship? The Common Man does not know, but sees no foreseeable end to politics as we know it today. And much of that is because of Karl Rove's influence over national politics. He was and is an enigma, a lightning rod, and a(n evil?) genius. Anyway, wherever Rove goes from here, The Common Man is sure that his class will be popular. His first two students stand ready to enroll:
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