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Immigration See other Immigration Articles Title: What Was Karl Rove Thinking? Some Clues From His Autobiography By Steve Sailer Karl Rove, The Architect of George W. Bushs campaigns and domestic policy, has been one of the central figures of this already puzzling century. No single adviser has been more closely linked to a President since Henry Kissinger served Richard Nixon. For most of the last decade, Rove defined the official Republican line, stomping alternative conservative viewpoints into obscurity. And it all ended in catastrophe. So is Roves autobiography, Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight, the first memoir from a true Bush insider, enlightening about what went wrong? Answer: yesbut mostly in an unintended way. The largest part of this large book (596 pages) comprises talking points defending Rove and Bush from Democratic attacks. Rove, who penned hundreds of junk mail fundraising letters before going to work full time for Bush in the 1990s, isnt a bad writer. If you really want to hear Roves side of the old controversies that once garnered headlines and television chatter, his book provides a convenient compendium. On the other hand, if you are interested in learning from past mistakes, Courage and Consequence wont be terribly informative, as Ill explain below. The smallest part of the book offers general advice on electioneering, most of it sound. Rove writes, for example,
not everybody votes
This means that there is usually a large pool of possible voters on the table who can tip an election, if only they can be enticed to go to the polls (pp. 24-25). During the Republican triumphs of 2002 and 2004, Rove did a fine job at the blocking and tackling of Get-Out-the-Vote. Rove devotes a moderate amount of space to describing his feelings, which are mostly hurt. People have said a lot of unkind things about Karl Rove over the years, andhe wants you to knowtheyve left him feeling sorry for himself. This may seem rather odd. Rove has been a hyper-competitive, sharp-elbowed combatant in the arena for decades. You might imagine hed have built up some psychic scar tissue by now. I would have liked Rove more if he had portrayed himself as an old-fashioned devil-may-care rogue. These days, though, as bestsellers such as A Million Little Pieces and Dreams from My Father demonstrate, self-pity sells. A stiff upper lip doesnt cut it in the Oprah Age. Thus, we are informed that Rove has been hurt: Among the MSMs many transgressions, it accused Roves beloved adoptive father of being gay. Rove pushes back against this notion by telling us more than I, personally, cared to know about his mom and dads sex life. Perhaps the best anecdote in the book concerns Roves first (and last) marriage counseling session with his first wife (p. 53): (Theres no hint in Roves manuscript, which presumably was finished several months ago, of his December 29, 2009 divorce from his second wife.) Roves account of the family trauma caused by his mother, who killed herself when her third marriage was breaking up, is well done. Yet he doesnt explain how his emotionally difficult childhood relates to his subsequent life. Perhaps there isnt much of a connection. During the 1960 election, Rove just fell in love with the Republican Party the way other 9-year-old boys fall in love with baseball teams. Or maybe this lack of reflection is simply representative of the general absence of perspective in this book (and, for that matter, in Roves career). Rove is a hard-working fellow who gets a lot done. But for all his repute as the Boy Genius and Bushs Brain, you have to keep in mind that those are relative terms. Hes either a shallow thinker, or someone who has so internalized the reigning taboos that he has little of interest to add. Judging from his voluminous autobiography, Rove obsessed over winning the next 24-hour news cyclenot in trying to understand much of long-term significance. A Presidential wingmans self-serving memoirs dont have to be this superficial. I was recently rereading Years of Upheaval, Kissingers 1982 memoir of the tumultuous second Nixon administration. Kissingers book is enlarged and enlivened by his witty depictions of the stereotypical national characters of the countries he dealt with. But any Republican who wrote like that today would be crucified for political incorrectness. As a result of the curse of PC, we live in age of intellectual stultification. Roves feelings appear to have been hurt most frequently of all by George W. Bush. Theres something a little creepy about Roves glowing memory of the first time he laid eyes on W. on November 21, 1973 (p. 39): In Courage and Consequence, Rove vociferously eulogizes the greatness of George W. Bush. And yet Rove slips in dozens of small examples of Bush being hurtful, such as nicknaming Rove Turd Blossom. A recurrent drumbeat in the book is Bushs peevishness when tired (and he seems to tire quickly). Roves memoir has a bit of the flavor of a battered wife who ostentatiously defends her husband, partly out of affection and partly to draw sympathy to herself. Most of Roves memoir, though, is devoted to rehashing old controversies. Someday, there will be a revisionist history of the 2000s that makes sense of the decade by stepping outside the GOP v. Democrat ideological shackles. But, unsurprisingly, Rove isnt the man to do it. The most striking aspect is how irrelevant most of those old Republican vs. Democrat brouhahas that consumed the MSM are to understanding two of the three most spectacular failures of the Bush Presidency, the 9/11 skyjackings and the mortgage meltdown. Both came out of the blue because both the Republicans and Democrats had been in agreement. (For that matter, there was very little initial resistance to Spectacular Failure #3, the Iraq War). Edmund Burke described prudence as the first of all virtues. To Bush and Rove, though, prudence equals prejudice. They were just as much true believers in multicultural dogmas as their Democratic opponents and the press corps. Thus, for example, Rove somehow forgets to mention his amazing 1997-2001 crusade alongside Beltway Right activist Grover Norquist to win the (ludicrously small) Arab and Muslim vote by abolishing the Clinton Administrations use of ethnicity in profiling for airport security and also the use of secret evidence against terrorism suspects. According to Norquist, Rove phoned him not once but twice during the October 11, 2000 Presidential debate to point out Bushs demands for less protection against skyjackers. Rove asked Norquist to put the word out among Muslims voters. But, three days later, Al Gore agreed with Bush at a meeting with Muslim politicians. So, because it lacked partisan salience, Bushs campaign to make sure Mohammed Atta didnt get extra scrutiny at the airport has vanished from the American medias memory. There is one interesting historical tidbit in Courage and Consequence. I had long heard assertions by Islamist extremists, such as Sami al-Arian, that Bush was actually scheduled to meet with them in the White House on the afternoon of September 11, 2001 to brief them on his war on anti-terrorism. But that was so bitterly ironic that I assumed it must be an urban legend. Remarkably, however, in his chapter on 9/11, Rove blithely confirms that its true (p. 266): Roves attitude seems to be this: The Democrats didnt criticize Bush for it, so theres no reason not to admit it. To Rove, this anecdote merely illustrates Bushs compassionate conservatism. Similarly, Roves account of his advocacy of an ownership society (p. 248) leaves out all mention of one key component: the Bush Administrations promotion of imprudent and economically catastrophic zero-downpayment mortgages in the name of racial equality. But how many MSM reviewers will even notice? Out of 596 pages, Rove devotes four (pp. 410-413) to mortgages. And those solely discuss how corrupt Congressional Democrats thwarted the Administrations plan to clean up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in 2005. Hes not wrong about that. But he completely ignores how the Bush Administration debased traditional lending standards by greatly raised Fannie and Freddies lower income neighborhood quotas and imposed the " Government-Sponsored Enterprises first racial quota. But because both the Republican and Democrat leaderships were in bipartisan agreement that this was a good way to narrow the racial homeownership gap, these Bush policies were as uncontroversial as they were deleterious. So, again, they dont require defending by The Architect. And then, of course, theres immigration. VDARE.com readers who have been with us since 2001 will roll their eyes at Roves description of Bushs immigration policies. Yet Roves rewriting of history will likely be accepted credulously by the MSM as the one part of the book you can trust. Rove obviously wants to sell copies of his book to conservative Republicans. So he now soft-peddles his 2001-2007 crusade for amnesty. According to his index, the topic of immigration doesnt appear in the book until p. 378, when 800 leftist protestors trampled Roves lawn in March 2004. Rove writes obliquely (Immigration reform, of course = amnesty in Rovespeak): Strange, indeed. Its hard now to remember the obsessions of the Bush Administration before September 11, 2001, but they are easy to look up. Rove entered the White House in 2001 repeatedly offering to the MSM a prediction of partisan realignment inspired by his research into William McKinleys 1896 victory, which launched the GOP into control of the White House for 28 of the next 36 years. Rove explains the basis of his analogy on p. 132: Rove repeatedly suggested in 2001 that Bush would bring about a lasting realignment by capturing the growing Hispanic vote by making illegals legal. Consequently, Bush floated an amnesty / guest worker trial balloon in July 2001. The MSM was ecstatic. Andrew Sullivan, for example, gurgled: And it's great politicsmanaging to put the Democrats on the defensive and woo an important voting bloc. Actually it was and is terrible politics, as I have explained repeatedly, for example here. But during those sleepy months before 9/11, foreign policy was aligned around Roves political program as well. As bizarre as it may seem now, the initial focus of Bushian foreign policy was on striking a deal with Mexico over immigration. Bush made his first presidential trip abroad to meet the new, allegedly pro-business president of Mexico, Vicente Fox. He ordered Secretary of State Colin Powell to meet with Mexican foreign minister Jorge Castaneda to work out an immigration agreement. Fox was the first state visitor to the White House in early September 2001, where he demanded the U.S. legalize illegals by the end of the year. Yet, neither Mexico nor Fox, Vicente appears in Roves index. Realignment doesnt appear either. Funny thing. Rove wont admit that his amnesty obsession was a bad idea. But, no doubt knowing how unpopular it is with his target audience, he buries it until late in the book. He finally gets around to mentioning the 2001 amnesty misadventures on p. 467, where he writes: This is just flat-out untrue. The Bush-Rove plan had already died in the 107th Congress before 9/11. On September 6, 2001, Gallup released a poll entitled Americans Clearly Oppose Amnesty for Illegal Mexican Immigrants. As I wrote for UPI on September 10, 2001: Incredibly, Rove then completely ignores the Bush Administrations attempt to revive amnesty and guest workers in both 2004 and 2006. He skips to 2007, for a reason Ill explain below. Yet, upon its rollout in January 2004, the Administrations guest worker plan was essentially unlimited in scale, making it, a truly radical Open Borders policy, incredible as it seemed for a supposedly conservative President. The Washington Times reported: Bush orated: Apparently, Bush and Rove just hadnt thought about the fact that there are five billion people who live in countries even poorer than Mexico in terms of per capita income. So it hadnt occurred to them, either, that their guest worker plan would turn America into an overpopulated Blade Runner dystopia. Sheer incompetence. Eventually, other Republican politicians got through to the Administrations brain trust with the reminder that 2004 was an election year, so please shut up about amnesty. Courage and Consequences description of the Washington Establishments attempts to pass comprehensive immigration reform during the second Bush administration are bizarrely disingenuous. Rove simply leaves out the 2006 attempt by the Bush Administration to pass the McCain-Kennedy amnesty bill. (Remember that 2006 was the year of the huge demonstrations by illegal immigrants). As I noted earlier, Rove writes solely about the 2007 debate. Why? Because he wants to blame the failure to pass amnesty on the Democrats. They had the majority in Congress in 2007, after Rove had succeeding in losing the 2006 midterm elections. He writes: Of course, amnesty also failed to pass in 2004 and 2006 when the GOP controlled both houses, and in 2001 when the Republicans ran the House and the Democrats the Senate. How could that possibly have happened? Because the American public despised amnesty. Why did Rove keep beating his head against the wall over immigration? According to the old joke: Because it felt so good when he stopped. But will he ever stop? Rove has told the New York Times that he still regrets not slipping amnesty through by cutting more artful deals with the Democrats. His latest theory: A bipartisan victory for everybodyexcept the American people. The import of the Bush Administrations immigration enthusiasm extended far beyond its quadruple failure in Congress. By promising amnesty, Bush and Rove invited in more illegal aliens. And they helped pump up the Housing Bubble by implying to buyers of mortgage-backed securities that there would be ever more immigration driving up demand for homes. What was Karl Rove thinking? Why did he repeatedly order the GOP to pursue such an obviously self-destructive scheme? Former Bush speechwriter David Frum noted: Courage and Consequence offers no new answers. So in next weeks column, Ill consider explanations for one of the central puzzles of this catastrophic decade.
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#1. To: Prefrontal Vortex (#0)
One TurdBlossom recognizing another. It's just that simple.
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