Rove: time for more background

on this blog and on others, i have pushed and pushed my belief that karl rove is the most dangerous man in america... his combination of raw intellectual power, obsession with total control, fundamentalist ideology, ability to visualize and execute according to long-term scenarios, and masterful skill at creating chaos and division in "enemy" ranks, imho, puts him at the center of the flood of darkness that pours endlessly from the white house... those who continue to see him as merely a gifted political hack, are seriously underestimating his destructive ability...



thanks to michael at americablog, i found this article from editor and publisher written by someone who used to teach with rove and knows him well...

In teaching with him, I learned Rove assumes command over any political enterprise he engages. He insists on absolute discipline from staff: nothing escapes him; no one who works with him moves without his direction. [...] Little has changed since the Bush presidency; all roads still lead to Rove.

[...]

The problem, as always, in dealing with Rove, is establishing a clear chain of culpability. Rove once described himself as a die-hard Nixonite; he is, like the former president, both student and master of plausible deniability.

[...]

For in this case [Valerie Plame], Rove, improving on Macchiavelli, has bet that reporters won’t rat their relationship with the administration’s most important political source. How better for him to operate without constraint, or to camouflage breaking the law, than under the cover of journalists and journalism, protected by the First Amendment?

now, here's the pathological part... many people have talked about rove's affability... i get very disturbed when someone as malicious as rove does a jekyll and hyde and turns on the charm...

Karl Rove is in my experience with him the brightest and most affable of companions; perhaps I have been coopted, for I genuinely treasure his friendship. But neither charm nor political power should be permitted to subvert the First Amendment, which is intended to insure that reporters and citizens burrow fully and publicly into government, not insulate its players from felony, or reality.

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