Karl Rove loses some of his WH responsibilities

April 19, 2006

ABC News reported this morning: “[tag]Karl Rove[/tag] Loses Domestic Policy [tag]Duties[/tag].” The headline doesn’t use the word “[tag]demotion[/tag],” but that’s pretty much what happened.

[A] senior administration official revealed another move in the ongoing shakeup of Bush’s staff, saying that longtime confidant and adviser Karl [tag]Rove[/tag] is giving up oversight of policy development to focus more on politics with the approach of the fall midterm elections.

Just over a year ago, Rove was promoted to [tag]deputy chief of staff[/tag] in charge of most [tag]White House[/tag] policy coordination. That new portfolio came on top of his title as senior adviser and role of chief policy aide to [tag]Bush[/tag].

But now, the job of deputy chief of staff for policy is being given to Joel Kaplan, now the White House’s deputy budget director, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the president had not yet made the announcement.

Rove will still be a Deputy Chief of Staff, but apparently will shift his focus to the area in which his specializes, away from domestic policy and towards [tag]campaign[/tag] [tag]politics[/tag]. This is, to be sure, a positive development — the president had given Rove responsibilities that never made any sense anyway.

Let’s not forget, the White House tapped Rove to head up the administration’s reconstruction effort on the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina. Bush also tapped Rove to serve on the White House Iraq Group and to coordinate policy between the White House Domestic Policy Council, National Economic Council, National Security Council and Homeland Security.

For a guy with no training or experience in domestic or foreign policy (he didn’t even graduate from [tag]college[/tag]), Rove sure has been busy with some of the biggest and most substantive policy issues in the country.

Well, he was busy with these issues; now he’ll start thinking exclusively about the midterm elections. Since the Bush White House has never had a policy apparatus anyway, and political questions were always paramount, I’m not entirely sure how the new division of WH labor will be different. I guess we’ll see soon enough.

They are freeing up Rove’s schedule so he can work the midterms for the party. The flip side is that should he end up indicted in the Plame affair, they’ll crow that they ‘demoted’ him long ago. Bush has nothing to lose, and the repub party, in their desperation, have everything to gain. It will be interesting to watch where he goes from here.

  • Rove will find it hard to regain his former glory even in the campaign realm. Everyone has seen his tricks already and as the saying goes, “Familiarity breeds contempt.”

    And boy, is Rove totally familiar to us all. 😉

  • I don’t see how this is a change. In this admnistration, policy and politics are the same thing.

  • The two most important domestic policy issues of the second Bush term were social security and immigration ‘reform’. Rove wanted these to transform Republicans into a governing party for the next few decades. Both have been dismal failures. His plan failed and he has been pulled off of the domestic beat.

  • Okay, I’m going to go out on a limb.

    Josh Bolton, frustrated for years at having his budgets discarded by Congress without the least peep out of the White House, has finally gotten into a position where fiscal conservatives can be put in charge of policy (Joel Kaplan) and legislative affairs (we’ll see who soon). He is going to reverse the Bush policy of not vetoing anything put out by the Congressional Republicanites and try to put the Government on a path that at least looks like the elimination of systemic deficits.

    Karl, in the meantime, takes on the role of trying to get the Republicanites re-elected in 2006. When he fails at this, he gets to ‘spend more time with his family’. Of course the new Democratic majority(ies) will make it even easier for Bush to veto appropriations he does not like.

    Josh obviously got around the road-blocks to Bush and explained that his current legacy is the subjugation of America to Chinese bankers and will be if something is not done about his deficits.

  • Sweet, now he gets to play politics but still be on the White House payroll. It’s a win-win!

    I tried that with my boss this morning. I said I wasn’t going to do anything related to my job, but still expected a paycheck. I can still hear him laughing.

  • This comment says it all for me!
    “The secretary of defense does not command the respect and confidence of our men and women in uniform.”

    –Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE), quoted by the Lincoln Journal Star, on Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld

  • “Just over a year ago, Rove was promoted to deputy chief of staff in charge of most White House policy coordination.”

    I think you meant to write:

    Just over a year ago, Rove was promoted to deputy chief of staff in charge of most White House corruption policy.

  • NeilS,

    I must disagree with you on the Bush agenda (domestic and foreign must be lumped together).

    Social Security and immigration are second tier. First tier consists of the Iraq War, anything (ANWAR and relax pollution regulations) for the energy (oil & gas, coal, electric) companies and, most importantly, the tax cuts for rich.

    If the first tier survives, the country will be well on its way to becoming the Brazil of North America.

  • That Rove will be spending his time on the mid-term elections doesn’t make me happy. As doubtful said above, playing politics while working in the WH… well, didn’t Clinton get in trouble for this kind of thing? And hopefully all of his past “tricks” and “methods” have gotten enough publicity and the press will help expose the lies.

    Plus Rove’s still got the shadow of Fitz hanging over him.

    I just posted the following on the post about Cheney, but hope CB doesn’t mind if I repeat it (since that article is almost off of the front page), and some of the same sentiments fit Rove as well.
    ~~~
    Even as one who “knew” that Cheney was calling the shots, I found this article both scary and infuriating.
    Three observations:
    – It’s not “Darth Cheney”, it’s “Emperor Cheney”.
    – So much for “transparency” in government (totally lacking in this admin, I know, I know).
    – Excuse me, but our tax dollars pay the VP and his staff [and the prez and his staff]. They are public employees, OUR EMPLOYEES. I hope they all rot in jail when their crimes are exposed. (Go Fitz!)

  • Like Bush is going to give up Karl Rove. Please. Just because on paper he is giving up these responsibilities, doesn’t make it so in fact.

  • One hopes that the Democratic campaign committees in every competitive race take a good close look at what they see as their strengths, and then look at any wild and crazy method or possibility of attacking them on that very point and making them look weak as a result (most obviously, think Kerry on his Vietnam record and the Swiftboat Scumvets), because that is going to happen everywhere it can happen. Rove has merely gone from spending 95% of his time planning this stuff to 100%. Who do you think came up with the thugs talking point that it’s the fault of the Democrats that the House bill on immigration didn’t get rid of the bad part about making illegals felons? I’ve already seen that talking point show up in Letters to the Editor in the LA Times (from a reader in North Carolina?).

    Look at everything that is possible, no matter how low, how scummy, how wrong. One doesn’t have to remember that that moron in Georgia (widely considered one of the most stupid people in the GA GOP) who ran for Senate (and won) by making Max Cleland an ally of Osama Bin Laden.

    And when he’s indicted (one prays daily), he’ll just sit at the “sidelines” giving “advice” and the campaign will roll on.

    The only way Rove’s Reign of Error is going to be stopped is when he is face down, bleeding out from a large-caliber exit wound. And then I suggest driving a cedar stake through his chest (they’ll find he has no heart) just to make sure.

  • The American people have been made fools of by the clever schemes of Karl Rove, the Dr. Frankenstein of American politics, the man who took this half-brained creature, this pseudo-moron, mental pygmy, dormant brain dumbya, mindless George Bush, and transformed him into president of the U.S. It’s what we all expect of a C– student: Skim the first couple of chapters and hope to bullshit the rest. George Bush is the kid who was born on third and thinks he kicked a field goal. Now the slow kid on the short bus wants to drive us into Iran. Do you really want to go for that ride?

  • When the indictment comes, Rove’s lower-profile job “Republican party strategist” doesn’t look as bad in the headlines as Presidential assistant. In the meantime, as Tom Cleaver points out, the energizer rover will keep on going — in a White Office, paid by the taxpayer to help the Republicans cheat their way back into office.

  • K-Man said Now the slow kid on the short bus wants to drive us into Iran. Do you really want to go for that ride?

    Hey…they’re the war planners we have, not the ones we wished we had.

    Rove is just a lamp with a new lampshade. Nothing has changed.

  • slip kid no more – Foreign policy may be more important now, but remember that during hte first campaign Bush was basically an isolationist. Social Security and immigration reform (along with tax cuts) were initially very important (top tier) to Rove, and consequently Bush, in the realignment of the parties. 9/11 changed the focus to international concerns. Then the Iraq war took over the presidency.

    Lance – Bush will NEVER give up Rove, unles he is indicted. And the present Republicans only have pork to get votes. They will NEVER become fiscally conservative and neither will Bush or Rove because they have always bought votes with government largesse.

  • “Lance – Bush will NEVER give up Rove, unles he is indicted. And the present Republicans only have pork to get votes. They will NEVER become fiscally conservative and neither will Bush or Rove because they have always bought votes with government largesse.” – NeilS

    Well, I think Bush is getting delusional about his own abilities. He is reported to have mocked Cheney in staff meetings (understandable from anyone but him) for the failures of planning and intelligence before Iraq. And Rove’s latest initiatives (social security privitization and immigration reform) haven’t been really successful either.

    Now Rove has the responsibility to win in November and has had his docket cleared of all other duties. If he loses control of either house, or even loses seats for the Republicanites, he is set up for the fall.

    Bush may need Rove, but I doubt he enjoys acknowleging it.

  • Rove knows that job one has to be keeping the majority in both houses. If he fails, lots of them will end up in jail.

    This fall’s election tactic? Cornered wolverines will look nicer.

  • For a guy with no training or experience in domestic or foreign policy (he didn’t even graduate from college),

    Exactly. Rove thinks he’s Alexander Hamilton or something, but he’s not- he’s just a dirty tricks guy.

    Same with Rummy. Rummt thinks he’s Hannibal or Patton or something; he’s really just some snotty rich-kid prick.

  • The upside to all of this is that they’re finally finding it necessary to pull the troll out of policy-making. The downside is that the troll is going back to where he can do the most damage—polarizing the people. He doesn’t have to con everyone; about 37% of the electorate wouldn’t say no to this crop of theiving scoundrels if their very lives depended on it. That leaves about 14% to either con into (1) voting “for” the GOP—or (2) voting “against” the Dems—or (3) staying away from the polls on Election day, either by choice or by more nefarious methodologies and practices. Disenfranchising voters has worked well for Rove and his minions on numerous occasions. Voter registration data disappears. People get sent to the wrong precincts. Voter-registration drives get bushwhacked. Internet sites get hacked. Ye Gods—there’s nothing that these villains won’t try—and Rove is just the troll for the job. Bush knows this; so does Cheney.

    So—this makes “von Rove” the next target—doesn’t it?

  • NeilS says —

    “but remember that during the first campaign Bush was basically an isolationist.”

    That was Bush’s first lie! He always wanted to get Saddam because “he try to kill my dad.”

  • Turd Blossom Karl Rove

    The less government conservatives support Karl Rove and Bush with NOW political activities and travels around the country raising money for upcoming Congressional campaigns. It is a very convenient career, so long as you can get away with it. The self-described conservatives in the White House.

    Will we hear Broke back protégées cowboy no talent hack Andy Lee from Springfield Illinois WMAY Radio’s Molson and Lee Show.

    The White House is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Therefore a citizen or reporter cannot file a request for documents or reports under that important law.

    Shalom,

    — Leland Milton Goldblatt, Ph.D. ®
    Distinguished Professor
    http://www.prof.faithweb.com
    Do Bush followers have a political ideology? “Now, in order to be considered a “liberal,” only one thing is required – a failure to pledge blind loyalty to George W. Bush.”

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