Karl Rove: Champion of ‘the little guy’?

August 17, 2007

Michael Gerson, Bush’s former chief speechwriter, came under fire this week, when Matthew Scully, Gerson’s former speechwriting colleague, blasted Gerson in a jaw-dropping piece for The Atlantic. Scully tries to destroy the Myth of Gerson entirely, characterizing him as a phony, self-aggrandizing, shameless publicity hog who took credit for work he didn’t do.

With that in mind, there was probably more interest than usual in Gerson’s latest Washington Post column, published today, his first since the publication of Scully’s piece. Would Gerson dazzle us and prove that his alleged brilliance is legit?

Not so much. The former speechwriter devoted his piece today to praising a different former colleague: Karl Rove.

Rove’s main influence on the Republican Party has not been a series of tactical innovations but a series of strategic arguments. In this way, Rove is the opposite of a cynical political operator. He is not only a partisan for George W. Bush but the most serious, tireless advocate of Bushism.

First, Rove argues that Republicans win as activist reformers, in the tradition of Lincoln, McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt. “We were founded as a reformist party,” he said in our conversation this week, “not to be against something, but to help the little guy get ahead.” The models he cites are 401(k)s and the mortgage interest deduction — government policies that encouraged individual wealth and ownership.

You’ve got to be kidding me. Rove is the opposite of a cynical political operator? He’s a champion of the little guy?

Gerson’s credibility comes under fire, and he writes this?

Kevin Drum tears apart Gerson’s evidence.

[Gerson’s evidence for Rove’s passion] is…wait for it…the mortgage interest deduction and 401(k)s? In case you’re wondering, the first is an outgrowth of the generic interest deduction that was included in the very first income tax legislation nearly a century ago (and was originally aimed at businesses, not home mortgages) and the second is a program that was accidentally created in 1978 under a Democratic administration and then put into its current form by a benefits consultant with a nose for loopholes. The IRS under Reagan didn’t shoot down the idea, but that was about all they had to do with it.

This is Rove’s model for the Republican Party’s great activist tradition of helping the little guy? Two programs that that were (a) accidental, and (b) not proposed by Republicans in the first place? What’s the problem? Couldn’t he come up with any actual examples of Republicans helping the little guy?

Well, no. He probably couldn’t.

I’d only add that Rove, the hero of the working-class, also helped push an agenda that opposed a minimum-wage increase, undermined labor unions, and lavished tax cuts on millionaires.

I’ve always had the sense that the Washington Post hired Gerson as a columnist because of his reputation as an accomplished speechwriter. Gerson could be for the WaPo what Safire was for the NYT

But this was predicated on Gerson having actual talent. I can’t help but wonder if the Post is having second thoughts.

Gerson’s talent is the same as the rest of those who occupy or recently occupied the WH–lying. They are very, very good at that. And with a country full of slack-jawed, intentionally ignorant, bed-wetting suckers, well, it is a talent that provides a big return on investment.

  • You should see the comments section in WAPO. It would appear that Gerson struck a nerve. There are literally hundreds of comments tearing him a new one.

  • Bush and Rove proved they were for helping the little guy when they commuted 5’6″ Scooter Libby’s prison term.

  • “I’d only add that Rove, the hero of the working-class, also helped push an agenda that opposed a minimum-wage increase, undermined labor unions, and lavished tax cuts on millionaires.”

    Not to mention push for a war of choice that has reduced the readiness and combat capabilty of our nation’s armed forces to a level it hasn’t seen since the post-Vietnam era.

    F**k you very much, Turd Blossom

  • When we read what Republicans like Rove and Gerson say, it’s a little like listening to a foreign language, where you have to take whatever they say, and translate it into the English that you and I speak. When you do that, what they say makes perfect sense. You read or hear “Rove was a champion of the little guy,” because those are the words coming out of his mouth. Translated, however, those same words are, “Rove was a master at figuring out how to make government fail the little guy, take as much of what little money the middle class person could scrape together, and put it into the pockets of corporate executives whose pockets were already bulging with cash, so they, in turn, could make 6-figure donations to Republican causes and be eligible for Cabinet and diplomatic appointments.”

    See how that makes sense now? It’s very easy once you get the hang of it – in simple form, you just have to take what you hear or read, and make it the exact opposite and you pretty much have mastered the art of translating Republi-speak.

  • Sounds like the term “little guy” is quite relative. Compared to Bush’s perceived “royal status,” these millionaire CEOs ARE the little guy.

    I don’t know about anyone else here, but the interest on our mortgage doesn’t reach the standard deduction for tax purposes. That’s no use to me.

    401k plans allow companies to dump their pension plans. Sound good for our perceived “little guys”? Not so much. But great for executive bonuses!

    So, in the billionaires for Bush crowd, Bush’s presidency is a great sucess. Not only for the people that count (the billionaires), but for the little guys(the millionaire CEOs), too.

    To borrow from Hillary, we are invisible to them.

  • Big lies are much easier to sell than little lies. Every Republican propagandist knows this.

    When we point out that their policies work against the little guys, they accuse us of class warfare!

    They’re not immoral. They’re amoral.

  • It’s impossible to comprehend what kind of mind equates Rove’s Young Republican “college prank” approaches to politics –e.g., character assassination, gay-bashing, sneering at the purple heart, election fraud, denial of the voting privilege, re-routing of military votes, bringing in bands of fist-swinging thugs — with “a series of strategic arguments” “in the tradition of Lincoln, McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt”.

  • McKinley was a reformer? On which planet in what universe? McKinley was the penultimate example of Gilded Age Republicanism. Mark Hanna brought Roosevelt in for the Vice Presidency to stymie reform by sidelining Roosevelt (whose presidency proves the upside of political assassinations). The only “reform” McKinley wanted was to reform the system to give the rich more – in other words, standard Republicanism.

    The truth is, Lincoln and Roosevelt were the exceptions that prove the rule about the Republican party.

  • “We were founded as a reformist party,” he said in our conversation this week, “not to be against something, but to help the little guy get ahead.”

    You guys have it all wrong. The term ‘little man’ can often be used as a derogatory term to refer to someone who is extremely petty and self-centered. In other words, Rove was saying that he’s there to help Bush get ahead. So Gerson’s entire article is a metaphor for Rove’s single-minded Bush advocacy, and such a subtle metaphor clearly demonstrates Gerson’s genius as a writer.

  • Actually, I highly recommend the Atlantic Scully article about Gerson, not just for its attack on Gerson’s credibility, but because of the portrait of a Bush True Believer. Matthew Scully was totally on board with the program, and still is, in most ways. It is a fascinating peek inside of his head, not just the speechwriter’s room.

  • To make these claims about Rove is ludicrous but to write about it in the Post really is a stretch. I mean, of all the subjects out there to write about, even those concerning Rove, this was a stretch to even being interesting enough to read. It had relevance to nothing substantial, was unsupported and basically meaningless. One of those “who cares” articles that is also total BS. So why even write such a piece? Read more like a college homework assignment,…”write about something Rove has contributed to domestic policy”… which Gerson would have failed miserably.

    Rove’s best answer to explain his position on “the little guy” came in response to guests at a press core dinner(I believe it was Melissa Ethridge or some similar entertainer) telling him hey, you work for us and he replied I work for the people. In other words he works for the people all right,…just not those people. Meaning all of us or the little guys.

    • Comments are closed.