The Architect Has No Clothes

What the will a Senate majority full of Olympia Snowes and John McCains and Lindsey Grahams get you? Easy. Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid in power. This is exactly the legacy of the Bush presidency --and Rove was right there at the levers of power the entire way.

Truth be told, Rove's biggest architectural accomplishment is the Obama administration. By doing his part as senior advisor to the president to define conservatism down, he sullied the reputation and disoriented the understanding of what it means to be conservative to millions of half-informed voters nationwide.

How did this manifest?

It has had a disastrous effect on the outcome of elections across the country since 2006. Frankly, a case can be made that only the Democrats' Wellstone Memorial in 2002 and an awful Kerry-Edwards campaign in 2004 allowed the perception that the Bush White House had an effective political wing. I submit that they never did. With Bush leaving office at around 26% approval, no one debates that now. This was Rove's wing.

Which raises the question I've had for ten years: can we finally -- once and for all -- bury the myth of the "architect"? With all due respect, putting together a strategy that forged a statistical tie with Gore-Lieberman and edged Kerry-Edwards by 3 points with the power of incumbency is not the stuff of genius.

Lee Atwater would be ashamed of such results. So how did Rove get this reputation?

Read the whole thing

H/T: RiehlWorldView

Katrina vs. Gulf oil spill

From American Spectator:

In the response to Hurricane Katrina, federal law specifically provided that the then Democrat Governor of Louisiana and Mayor of New Orleans were in charge. The federal and FEMA role was to "support…state and local assistance efforts" with the necessary, primarily financial resources. Nevertheless, in the days after the hurricane, President Bush's federal government was the only functioning authority, as the Coast Guard rescued 30,000 people off of rooftops. Hundreds of school buses that could have been used to whisk those people out of harm's way were left ruined under water due to Mayor Nagin's inaction in response to federal hurricane warnings. The partisan Governor acted only to deny and delay President Bush's control over the state's national guard for political reasons.

But the Gulf oil spill emanates from federal waters, which means President Obama is directly in charge, not state and local officials. And his derelictions are losing his own supporters...

The Coming Resignation of Barack Obama

From the Wall Street Journal:

Could this be Mr. Obama's Katrina? It could be even worse. The federal response to Katrina was governed by the 1988 Stafford Act, which says that in natural disasters on-shore states are in charge, not Washington. The federal obligation is to "support . . . State and local assistance efforts" by providing whatever resources a governor requests and then writing big checks for the cleanup. Mr. Bush had to deal with a Louisiana governor and a New Orleans mayor who were, by federal law, in charge.

But BP's well was drilled in federal waters. Washington, not Louisiana, is in charge. This is Mr. Obama's responsibility. He says his administration has been prepared for the worst from the start. Mr. Obama's failure to lead in cleaning up the spill could lead voters to echo his complaint in Katrina's aftermath: "I wish that the federal government had been up to the task."

Mr. Rove, the former senior adviser and deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush, is the author of "Courage and Consequence" (Threshold Editions, 2010).

Yes, the Gulf Spill Is Obama's Katrina

If it smells like a fish, good chance it's a fish

Karl Rove: Joe Sestak's lying or he's protecting a felon in Barack Obama's White House

Karl Rove: What Republicans Should Do Now

Repeal and reform will be a winning issue this fall

Republican candidates must focus on ObamaCare's weaknesses. It will cost $2.6 trillion in its first decade of operation and is built on Madoff-style financing. For example, it double counts Social Security payroll taxes, long-term care premiums, and Medicare savings in order to make it appear more fiscally responsible. In reality, ObamaCare isn't $143 billion in the black, as Democrats have claimed, but $618 billion in the red. And giving the IRS $10 billion to hire about 16,000 agents to enforce the new taxes and fees in ObamaCare will drive small business owners crazy.

PS: Cronkite told Larry King that Karl Rove "set up" bin Laden to send a video just before the 2004 elections!

Wow...talk about conspiracy nuts!

CNN LARRY KING LIVE

Bin Laden Releases New Videotape

Aired October 29, 2004 - 21:00 ET

KING: OK, Walter. What do you make of this?

CRONKITE: Well, I make it out to be initially the reaction that it's a threat to us, that unless we make peace with him, in a sense, we can expect further attacks. He did not say that precisely, but it sounds like that when he says...

KING: The warning.

CRONKITE: What we just heard. So now the question is basically right now, how will this affect the election? And I have a feeling that it could tilt the election a bit. In fact, I'm a little inclined to think that Karl Rove, the political manager at the White House, who is a very clever man, he probably set up bin Laden to this thing. The advantage to the Republican side is to get rid of, as a principal subject of the campaigns right now, get rid of the whole problem of the al Qaqaa explosive dump. Right now, that, the last couple of days, has, I think, upset the Republican campaign.

Read the whole thing