Rove's Ugly Legacy

Rove's legacy according to Andrew Sullivan, the man who only a few years ago was taken to calling people like me "fifth columnists" and traitors, but who had a change of heart somewhere down the line:

The man's legacy is a conservative movement largely discredited and disunited, a president with lower consistent approval ratings than any in modern history, a generational shift to the Democrats, a resurgent al Qaeda, an endless catastrophe in Iraq, a long hard struggle in Afghanistan, a fiscal legacy that means bankrupting America within a decade, and the poisoning of American religion with politics and vice-versa. For this, he got two terms of power - which the GOP used mainly to enrich themselves, their clients and to expand government's reach and and drain on the productive sector. In the re-election, the president with a relatively strong economy, and a war in progress, managed to eke out 51 percent. Why? Because Rove preferred to divide the country and get his 51 percent, than unite it and get America's 60. In a time of grave danger and war, Rove picked party over country. Such a choice was and remains despicable.

Rove is one of the worst political strategists in recent times. He took a chance to realign the country and to unite it in a war - and threw it away in a binge of hate-filled niche campaigning, polarization and short-term expediency. His divisive politics and elevation of corrupt mediocrities to every branch of government has turned an entire generation off the conservative label. And rightly so. It will take another generation to recover from the toxins he has injected, with the president's eager approval, into the political culture and into the conservative soul.

And let's not forget mangling Hurricane Katrina's aftermath (how could such a "genius" have let Bush miss the political opportunities that could have come with him riding in on a white horse to save the day?), trying to destroy Social Security and Medicare with disingenuous scare tactics, injecting the federal government into the Schiavo family's decisions (yeah that was a good political issue for Republicans), stirring up the immigration hornet's nest (bringing all the rightwing racist crazies front and center for everyone to see), mostly ignoring Al Qaeda (except for the ones who followed us to Iraq), rampant illegal and unconstitutional spying, outing for petty political gain a CIA agent who worked on controlling the spread of weapons of mass destruction, choosing tax cuts for the rich over the nation's fiscal health, and generally screwing up the entire Middle East even worse than when they found it.

Karl "Turdblossom" Rove will forever share credit with Bush and Cheney for the Worst Presidency Ever.