{"id":10716,"date":"2007-05-05T12:10:22","date_gmt":"2007-05-05T16:10:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/10716.html"},"modified":"2007-05-05T12:10:22","modified_gmt":"2007-05-05T16:10:22","slug":"karl-rove-is-not-a-believer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/karl-rove-is-not-a-believer\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Karl Rove is not a believer’"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m really not sure what to make of this assessment<\/a>, gleaned by Christopher Hitchens from Karl Rove, as part of Hitchens’ new book, “God is not great.”<\/p>\n

I know something which is known to few but is not a secret. Karl Rove is not a believer, and he doesn’t shout it from the rooftops, but when asked, he answers quite honestly. I think the way he puts it is, “I’m not fortunate enough to be a person of faith.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’m torn about the relevance of this. Karl Rove’s theological beliefs, or lack thereof, should be his business. I’d assumed, incorrectly, that he shared the president’s worldview on such matters, but I’m not at all sure this is anyone’s concern but Rove’s.<\/p>\n

But (and you had to know a “but” was coming), that’s unsatisfying, isn’t it? Rove works in what can fairly be described as an evangelical White House, led by an evangelical president. Before Hitchens’ “scoop,” we knew of no professed atheists in the White House at all. Indeed, I assumed an admitted non-believer would be made to feel most unwelcome in the president’s inner-circle.<\/p>\n

And what of that phrase, “I’m not fortunate enough to be a person of faith”? Jonathan Chait argues<\/a>, “If you don’t believe in God, then why would you think believers are ‘fortunate’ for putting their faith in a nonexistent higher being?” While Ezra relates<\/a> to Rove’s approach, concluding, “I deeply envy individuals of faith, and would happily bargain away whatever satisfaction I supposedly derive from my bold freethinking for a sense of serenity, a perceived connection to a more permanent and grounding plane, and a steadying faith in the continuation of my consciousness.”<\/p>\n

I’m not sure what to make of all of this, but I thought I’d pass the “news” along to readers anyway. I do, however, have a couple of questions for Rove and the White House political operation: in his role as a campaign strategist, has Rove ever encouraged a client to exploit religion for partisan gain? Or denigrate non-believers to score points with the GOP base? If so, Rove’s atheism would appear to have far more significance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m really not sure what to make of this assessment, gleaned by Christopher Hitchens from Karl Rove, as part of Hitchens’ new book, “God is not great.” I know something which is known to few but is not a secret. Karl Rove is not a believer, and he doesn’t shout it from the rooftops, but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10716\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}