Fred Barnes finds that it’s so hard to say goodbye

August 15, 2007

Practically every day for the last seven years, Fred Barnes, executive editor of The Weekly Standard, has been the most shameless, unapologetic White House sycophant in DC. In most instances, it seemed as Barnes couldn’t speak while Karl Rove was drinking water.

And while many of us have already had our fill of Rove retrospectives, you haven’t really read a Rove hagiography until you’ve read Barnes’ hagiography.

Rove is the greatest political mind of his generation and probably of any generation. He not only is a breathtakingly smart strategist but also a clever tactician. He knows history, understands the moods of the public, and is a visionary on matters of public policy. But he is not a magician.

I particularly enjoyed the reference to “any generation.” In other words, Barnes believes Rove may very well be the greatest political mind who has ever lived. (Jonathan Chait added, “Actually, I’m surprised Barnes’ qualified that statement with ‘political.'”)

For that matter, the “not a magician” line is, oddly enough, meant to be even more flattering. As Barnes sees it, Rove is a political demigod, but unfortunately some people failed to constantly listen to his genius, to their own detriment. Damn skeptics; didn’t they see the light shining around Rove’s head?

Yet the legend of their capability to achieve much more simply won’t die. Rove has been faulted for the failure of Bush’s two major domestic initiatives of his second term, Social Security reform and immigration reform. For sure, Rove strongly favored both policies and expected them to fare better than they did. But is he to blame for near-unanimous Democratic opposition to overhauling Social Security? Of course not. And it was Bush’s dip in popularity, not anything Rove did or didn’t do, that wiped out any White House influence on immigration.

Rove, by the way, defends both initiatives. By putting Social Security on the agenda, Bush prompted “an important debate for the country to have.” He thought, wrongly as it turned out, that Democrats would be willing to compromise on the issue. On immigration, he blames Majority Leader Harry Reid for yanking the bipartisan bill from the floor as it was nearing passage.

Yes, when things to well for the Bush White House, Karl Rove deserves all the credit. When things fall apart, Rove deserves none of the blame.

And while it’s not really the point of the piece, I just have to say that Barnes’ take on the Social Security debate is a special kind of stupid. Dems were unwilling to “compromise”? The president wanted to privatize the system, but refused to even offer a plan to do so. Americans hated the plan, and for good reason; it didn’t make any sense and would destroy the most popular social program in the government. How is this the Dems’ fault?

But I digress. Barnes’ piece isn’t a column, it’s a love-letter. One gets the sense that had it been hand-written, Barnes would have dotted the I’s with little hearts.

C’mon, Fred, have you no shame?

With apologies-in-advance to my friends at Pixar—Fred Barnes is a Sheriff Woody doll, and Rove is both the pull-string, and the kid that gets to pull that pull-string.

Talk about your mutually-parasitic symbiosis. May they both find themselves buried deep in a toxic-waste landfill….

  • SIMPLE ANSWERS TO SIMPLE QUESTIONS

    C’mon, Fred, have you no shame?

    No.

    This has been another edition of simple answers to simple questions (with apologies to Atrios).

  • No wonder these stumbleflops went after Clinton. They prefer to do their blow jobs on paper.

  • Besides the fact that Fred is doing he verbal equivalent to Rove of what Monica Lewinsky did to Bill Clinton, I seriously question a number of his insinuations.

    “Absent Iraq–a matter beyond the reach of Rove’s influence–it might still be rolling.” I do not doubt for a second that such boneheaded rhetoric as “stay the course” were Karl’s ideas. Karl is well known for messaging consistency and making sound bites suddenly ubiquitous in the media. Politicizing Iraq looks every bit to be Rove’s plan and I wouldn’t let him off so easy on the war.

    Blaming ’06 on Republican corruption and washing Rove’s hands of this is beyond belief. Are we to believe that Rove had absolutely no knowledge of Tom DeLay’s shenanigans as Karl was establishing the Permanent Republican Majority? And his role in the US Attorney firings is not government corruption?

    Third, Fred seems to have forgetten either Rove’s greatest success or failure — depending on your viewpoint — his management of post-Katrina recovery. New Orleans will always stand as a shining example of Karl’s “genius.”

  • Rove, aided and abetted by the Republicans and people just like Fred Barnes, demonized the opposition to every administration initiative. To even ask questions was to be accused of “Treason, Bush hatred, failure to support the troops, support for terrorists,” etc. etc. Besides attacking Democrats, they savaged moderate members of their own party. Now they’re left with a losing war and a lot of unpopular positions from which they cannot back down.

    Rove separated people into allies and enemies with no in-between. Now there are few allies. This is the result of his “genius”.

  • “Rove is the greatest political mind of his generation and probably of any generation.”

    If by “greatest” you mean “pure, self-serving evil”, then yeah, I’d have to agree.

  • One gets the sense that had it been hand-written, Barnes would have dotted the I’s with little hearts.

    You stole my line.

    🙂

    I love how all the fawning coverage of Rove ignores the basis for why people hate Bush: Rove’s strategies and tactics only win elections; when it comes to actually governing and running a country, they suck donkey butt.

    This is what happens when a culture decides to put “winning” above things like ethics, class and dignity (see: most professional sports and the controversy surrounding them).

  • Aw, come on, give the guy a break. As my hero, Daffy Duck said: “it’th a living.” And he’s in no danger, as all the knives in his drawer could use an afternoon with a steel.

  • Barnes failed to note that Karl has shoulders you could land a 747 on! Smart is soooo sexy but broad shoulders and a big man-gut from too much red meat is beyond fantastic!

    Let’s be clear Karl Rove = Rasputin except instead of bringing down the Tsarist Rove tried (well have to see if he failed) to bring down american democracy. Maybe he is more like the anti-Rasputin.

    • Comments are closed.