Rove May Leave Within Weeks

U.S. News & World Report ^ | November 17, 2006

[West Coast Conservative]

The rumors that chief White House political architect Karl Rove will leave sometime next year are being bolstered with new insider reports that his partisan style is a hurdle to President Bush's new push for bipartisanship. A key Bush advisor tells the US News Political Bulletin, "Karl represents the old style and he's got to go if the Democrats are going to believe Bush's talk of getting along." The advisor said a departure might come in "weeks, not months." A Rove ally, however, noted that he has a record of out-witting his critics.

[Cicero]

I agree. Bush is loyal to his friends.

[jrooney]

He did not care about SCOTUS? His first nomination was Roberts, therefore your argument looks like it has been shot by some Cheney buckshot.

I do not know what type of justice Miers would have been and neither do you. Plus after Miers withdrew, GW could have put up anyone else but he chose Alito in the mold of Roberts.

Seems like he had a plan to me alright and if I was a betting man, Miers would have been a hawk like Roberts and Alito.

[Bahbah]

Conservative twits abandoned the President and the Republicans

People I would not want to go into combat with.

[Plains Drifter]

BIG ping!!!!!

[A.Hun]

Me either.

[FReepapalooza]

Sounds like you have a plan. Enjoy the next few years. /s

[TexanToTheCore]

Here is what is actually going on:

1. Karl Rove is likely to leave to manage another candidate's run for the Presidency. 100% predictable. That is his business and he has a winning percentage. Very high dollars involved here.
2. Because this reporter is breathing, he wrote this piece so he can claim that he had the inside track when in fact, it is just a guess.

Just another media event, people. There is no there there.

[gusopol3]

hey, I wanna know why Bush was unable to take advantage of some very important developments in the closing stages of the campaign-- like N. Korea agreeing to six party talks on the Wednesday before the election, when all the wise folk, including Lugar, had told us Bush was a fool for not sitting down for bilateral talks; like failing to highlight the roll out of the LASER plane as part of the missile defense initiative; like not invoking Reagan as part of the WOT, the Republican commitment to national security through missile defense over the last generation ( let the Democrats kvetch,"it won't work"-- see how that plays with the electorate). The missile defense gambit worked for Reagan against USSR ( see Kengor, The Crusader) ; why not use the old master's playbook against NK and Iran-- "we'll trump your advances. " Who knows whether that's part of the calculus that brought NK back to the table? If you can't tell me who failed to frame the election in those compelling terms, I'm blaming Rove.

[A.Hun]

I lived through 8 years of Clinton just fine and I'll see to it that I live through the next years just as well.

The three thousand that died in the WTC can't say that.

[gotribe]

You forgot this one...thought they had a plan for Iraq. They don't.

[Jrabbit]

Amen

[FReepapalooza]

I applaud your decision. It's too bad so many other people didn't stick to their principles.

[jrooney]

Well thanks to those that did not vote or ABANDONED the GOP, you will now see an immigration policy by the donks that will make you suicidal.

Why do you suppose we went from 45% to 30% hispanic voters voting for the GOP this election cycle, thus helping give power to the donks?

To maintain a majority, sometimes on major issues like immigration there has to be some compromise, and when there is not, we lose voters, which means we will be a minority party. Being in the minority will never get us anywhere period.

[OldFriend]

Tantrums brought this disaster and they're not through stamping their feet and banging their drums against republicans that don't measure up to their standards.

I will never ever forgive the betrayal. Those faux patriots who wanted it their way or no way, and didn't care about the troops.

[L.N. Smithee]

I thought they had a plan for the elections; they didn't. I thought they had a plan for Syria; they don't. I thought they had a plan for Iran; they don't.

You also have seen the light, my brother. From a post-election post of mine:

---

I have said Rove isn't now and never was a genius many times on FR and have been pilloried for it. I think he had the good fortune to have run against two unbelievably arrogant blowhards who didn't have any ideas that America would embrace. This time, he was running against Nancy Frigging Pelosi, "my" Congressperson (it makes me feel slimy just saying it). Nancy Pelosi is not just an empty dress, she is a see-thru empty dress. She's a cipher. She's got nothing. She's never done anything but raise millions for the Democrats. And now, if anything happens to Bush & Cheney, God forbid -- NANCY PELOSI IS GOING TO BE PRESIDENT. I can hardly believe I wrote that last sentence, and the worst part is that it's true.

[When he predicted retaining control of the legislature] I wanted to believe Rove knew something we didn't. He didn't, he doesn't, and I was right. But I so wanted to be wrong this time.

---

Most egregious of all of Bush/Rove/Card/Mehlman/McClellan's sins was the inability to play rough with the media when all the facts were indisputably on their side. They didn't manage the media, they let the media manage them. They even let a glowing profile of Judge Charles Pickering on 60 Minutes go to waste! Pickering was being tarred and feathered as a Jim Crow fan who lightened the sentence on a KKK member, and it was left up to guys like the now-liberated Rush Limbaugh to make the case because nobody else seemed interested!

Sorry, Rove worshippers, I am not convinced that he is an electoral Einstein by two Presidential wins because, as I wrote earlier, the competition was weak, the wins were close when they shouldn't have been, and the goal is not simply victory but implementation of lasting change.

Tax cuts and the resulting economy? Fantastic! But why weren't they crowing about the economy when the MSM was talking it down? Now that they've lost control, we could lose the cuts as well.

Saddam is gone; terrific! But in the shouts of "There were NO WMDs!" why soft-pedal the discovery that Saddam's nuke programs were on the back-burner until sanctions ended (Duelfer Report) and only release the newly-discovered documents when endangered GOP candidates demanded it? And when things didn't go as planned in the aftermath of the war, and the President knew things had to change, why lie about retaining Rumsfeld? Now, Bush may be headed in the direction of solutions that sound too close to Joe Biden's for comfort!

I have been skeptical about Rove's competency ever since his blunder of hiring Ann Richards loyalists in 2000 almost cost Bush the debates with Gore and thus the Presidency (see Lozano, Juanita Yvette). If he's gone, it's not only not a moment too soon, it's years too late.

[BurtSB]

first , consider the source , its the david gergen run dnc newsletter . so this could be just dnc insider nonsense.
second, rove 's job is done and the 2008 election cycle has begun . he will be making big bucks with someone .

[A.Hun]

So you get your news from CNN? Yes they have a plan, although it might not be working fast enough for you.

It is called finishing what we started regardless of the cost because it must be done.

Wars are funny like that....plans don't work perfectly.

[Republican Red]

Rove has been a disaster

Election troll

New member as of 10/6/06

[JFC]

I don't even know many of those angry freepers on here. Most of us still strongly support President Bush and we will not leave him. MSM won this electin for the dims, not the dims!!

[jrooney]

You are right. They are the type that flee when the going gets tough. Pansies, the lot of them.