The New America as Conceived by Karl Rove
by Edith Fletcher
A new political cult has been born from a single father and no mother. It's name is Rovism, and its father is Karl Rove who will be known, reviled, imitated and dissected for decades after his demise.
His influence on American politics is deep and mutates the primary cells of the body of this country in a way that will not allow this country to return to its original integrity. And the changes are wider than they appear at first analysis.
It is a change that not only affects politics but alters the whole body of the American public into a new personality -- a new people who would be strange to George and Martha, Abe and Mary Todd and even Harry and Bess.
Various analysts frequently note the obvious drift as they refer to government and politics. Neal Gabler, a senior fellow at the Norman Lear Center at USC Annenberg, says Rovism (his term) is "a philosophy and practice of governing that pervades the administration and even extends to the Republican-controlled Congress.
"As Robert Berdahl, chancellor of UC Berkeley, has said of Bush's foreign policy, a subset of Rovism, it constitutes a fundamental change in 'the fabric of constitutional government as we have known it in this country.'"
He is not just a "conniver" who is in the center of policy and decision making, but he is in the process of changing institutions and philosophies by rewarding even slight dissents with reprisal. General Eric K. Shinseki was retired after countering Rumsfeld's low estimate of required troops in Iraq . Actuary Richard Foster was told he would lose his job if he gave Congress the true figures of the cost of the Medicare Drug bill before they
voted on it.
Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill was fired for suggesting large tax cuts might be damaging to the economy. Bremer was influenced to take back his words on inadequate troops in Iraq and left late at night after handing over "sovereignty" to Iraq unexpectedly. And after Joseph Wilson's outed the yellow-cake story his wife, Valerie Plame, was outed as a CIA agent.
Wayne Madsen,a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist, author, syndicated columnist, reported in "Karl Rove: the King of the Dirt." that Independent-minded Pentagon flag rank officers, from retired Marine Corps General Anthony Zinni to Iraqi War commander General Tommy Franks, have also been on the receiving end of Rove's torrents of abuse and disinformation; Zinni for being outspoken against the war, and Franks for disagreeing with awarding to Silver Star to Jessica Lynch.
Gabler notes in referring to reprisals to their own, though bad enough, that "Naturally, the administration's treatment of the opposition is worse." Rove does not compromise and brooks no contribution from outsiders. His facts are what he makes them, and the most agile minds are hired to twist words into blood-letting slogans and lethal sound bites.
He uses faith for his own purposes and provides religious strawmen and tar babies for unsuspecting opponents to flay at or get stuck to. And after all their flaying and cleaning off of mud and tar they end up looking silly and ineffective. They are ineffective -- at laying booby traps and political landmines in the Rovism way because he makes his "ism" swagger and look admirably tough to little people.
Madsen wonders if it was coincidence that former Vice President Gore had to endure baggage searches at airports twice on his way to a campaign trip to Wisconsin . Or that the late FBI counterterrorism agent John P. O'Neill had a briefcase containing some sensitive documents stolen from him at Tampa on the way to a retirement planning session.
Above all, says Gabler, "Unwavering discipline, demonization of foes, disdain for reality and a personal sense of infallibility based on faith are the stuff of a theocracy
