Can’t this person just go away?

Now the supposed Republican über strategist Karl Rove is on Chris Wallace’s Sunday morning program on Fox, once again attacking Christine O’Donnell (you know, the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate from Delaware), as well as pronouncing on politics generally. Why is this sinister man everywhere? Why has Fox made him its lead commentator? He has zero skills as a commentator. He has nothing worthwhile to contribute. He’s boring. Yet O’Reilly will have him on for a half hour at a stretch, during which he keeps repeating himself because he’s already shot his meager bolt.

After what Rove did to the country as Bush’s top advisor for seven years, he should have vanished. Instead, he is in our faces constantly. He is standing proof that in America there’s no success like failure, so long as your failure takes place at a high enough level.

- end of initial entry -

Stephen T. writes:

Another reason I’d like Rove to go away is the visual image he projects. I’ve long believed that the Republican party should stop putting up spokesmen/candidates who are jowly, flabby, pale, Pillsbury Doughboy types, glutted with comfort-loving easy living. I think many people unconsciously associate flaccid, fleshy physical dissolution with a tendency toward political or philosophical corruption. They really need to present fit, vigorous people who stay in shape.

Mark Jaws writes:

My comment below on Rove dovetails nicely into my attempts to try harder to push the limits of your readers’ probity and prudence.

I was never a fan of Rove for foisting the woefully-out-of-his-league Bush on the conservative movement. Indeed, it was the refusal of Rove and his ilk to discuss Reverend Wright and Obama’s comments on white people during the 2008 campaign, which caused me to relinquish my allegiance to the GOP. However, it is two years later and the GOP establishment has suddenly morphed into an army of Mr. Incredibles when it comes to Sweet Christine O’Donnell. I am so PO’d at Rove I’d like to drop his paunchy, pudgy Pillsbury Dough Boy arse into a deep cauldron of boiling oil.

LA to Mark Jaws:

Given the obvious fancifulness of your fancy, this is printable. :-) If this is not printable, Dante’s Inferno is not printable.

Mark Jaws writes:

Stephen T. voiced my exact concern. While the right is ripe with fit and appealing babes such as Michelle Malkin, Sarah Palin, and Michelle Bachmann, the male ranks of the GOP talking heads are infested with testosteronally deprived marshmallows such as Gingrich, Rove, and Huckabee. It is no coincidence that a slim and trim handsome hunk was able to win that U.S. Senate seat in Massachusetts earlier this year. Physical appearance has an effect on the viewer and the voter.

David B. writes:

Some years ago, I was reading a piece by, I think, Andrew Ferguson. He wrote that in Washington when you fail, you land in a more prominent position. Washington failures also cash in with best-selling books. Ferguson used Oliver North as an example.

North got into the Iran-Contra scandal and was rewarded by being the GOP nominee in a Senate race. After losing, North got a radio talk show for a lot of money.

This is especially true with Beltway Right types. Karl Rove was the main political adviser to a president who set record lows in the polls and whose perceived failures of leadership led to the election of the most left-wing president in American history. And what is Rove doing now? Along with the usual book deal, he’s giving political advice every time you turn on Fox News.

Ironically, Ferguson was a neocon writer and the neocon types fit this category as much or more than anyone. Ferguson called it “Failing Upward.”

LA replies:

I don’t think North is a good example of the “failure succeeds” syndrome. He didn’t “fail” in Iran-Contra. To the contrary, he became a national sensation and star. He wowed conservatives with his ability to stand up to the questioning of the Democrats and put them on the defensive. He came across as a man of guts and patriotism. .

Rove, by contrast, is a very good example of the syndrome.

(Personally I lost interest in North during his Senate campaign seven years later. His speeches sounded like empty demagoguery to me.)

Posted by Lawrence Auster at September 19, 2010 10:16 AM | Send