Topic: One more reason to despise Karl Rove ...

[Pandora]

I had to double check to be sure, but Backwards Day was on on January 31st, so that doesn’t explain this.

Nor do I see any reports of the web site of Business Week being hacked. And as far as I know, Rove doesn’t even have a Linkedin account to phish, so I’m thinking this story is legit. Let’s hear from the man himself.

    Renewal of federal tax credits for wind energy can save U.S. jobs and reduce dependence on foreign oil, according to Karl Rove, an adviser to former President George W. Bush.

    “We’ve got a growing economy that’s increasing energy consumption and wind energy should be part of the solution,” Rove said today on a panel at a wind conference in Atlanta. Extending the so-called production tax credit “should be a priority.”

    A bill to extend through 2016 the 2.2-cent-a-kilowatt-hour credit for electricity produced by wind turbines, biomass, geothermal and landfill-gas plants has stalled in congress along with about 100 other expiring tax-related incentives.

It seems an odd time to take a stand like this, particularly given all the coverage on this subject in recent days. As Paul Driessen discovered, tens of billions in subsidies have still not resulted in wind power contributing more than 3% of the nations demands on the electrical grid. Further, wind farms tend to produce the most energy when demand is lowest and the least when demand maxes out.

Further, the more we look into this, the more it looks like a huge cash cow and boondoggle, as Goldman Sachs has set up an entire investment plan to cash in on the government largesse. Some people have a nose for taxpayer dollars when the spigots are opened up and this should be a warning sign at a minimum.

Nobody is saying we can’t have wind energy, but the development phase of this technology should be over by now. If you can put up a wind farm, produce useful power and make money doing so, then God bless. Have at it! But if it’s not profitable by now, I’m not sure what huge breakthrough we’re waiting for which justifies continuing to prop up development on the taxpayer’s dime.

And this is the man who had GW's ear for eight years, which explains a lot.

[warpmine]

....and all of them are like this. So called trusted advisers believe that they know better or worse yet, the newly elected president's believe that the advice from those that got them there are indispensable and follow it to the tee as not to offend. This PC BS has to stop.  

If it wasn't bad enough in reference to ethanol boondoggle just how stupid are these people. To be fair it's more ignorance and political than anything, but none of them have any clue as to why there was limits on government action upon the market.

[AlanS]

And all this time I didn't realize I needed another reason to hate Karl Rove. 8 yrs of his policy was quite enough.

[Libertas]

I don't need any more reasons to loath the existence of The Butthead, and yes Pan, it explains volumes...it is a shame how much Bush felt he needed this asshat and his bullsh*t so-called pragmatic ideas!  The Butthead is a latter-day Machiavellian who over-thought too much and nearly cost W the election in 2000 with his middling strategery!  If W had been unleashed from this fool and run as a conservative he would have trounced AlGore easily.  Why people listen to this egotistical blowhard is beyond me...

[IronDioPriest]

Hannity calls him "The Architect". Karl Rove is indeed the architect of Bush's electoral victory maps. But in slicing the electorate and cynically pandering to the factions in order to secure those victories, he has been an architect of the pathetic state of the GOP. He views everything from a "we have to be the party of government solutions if we want to win and remain relevant" perspective. He either fails to see, or doesn't care, that this takes the GOP out of the conservative column. My money's on the latter.

I can only imagine he and his cronies rolling their eyes at the notion of smaller government, and strategizing ways to pander to this strong current of Tea Party and constitutional sentiment to strengthen the GOP and grow government.

People like Karl Rove need to be repudiated.

[EW1(SG)]

Brilliance in one area doesn't imply brilliance in all areas.  (There are exceptions, of course, notably me.)

I don't know that there is any reason to hate Karl Rove, since he very ably executed his assigned task:  getting Mr. Bush into the White House and keeping him there.

I am under the impression that Mr. Cheney had far more influence than Rove did on policy matters; and everyone seems to overlook the fact that Mr. Bush was quite opinionated and a commanding presence.

While it is very apparent that Mr. Bush appreciated counsel from his trusted advisors, he also made it clear that his actions and policies were his.

It's fair to criticize Mr. Rove now for stupid sh*t he says, but unfair to blame perceived past policy failures on him.

Unlike Valerie Jarrett to O!banuthink, Rove was no Svengali to Bush.  If anything, it was the other way around.

[IronDioPriest]

Brilliance in one area doesn't imply brilliance in all areas.  (There are exceptions, of course, notably me.)

I don't know that there is any reason to hate Karl Rove, since he very ably executed his assigned task:  getting Mr. Bush into the White House and keeping him there.

I am under the impression that Mr. Cheney had far more influence than Rove did on policy matters; and everyone seems to overlook the fact that Mr. Bush was quite opinionated and a commanding presence.

While it is very apparent that Mr. Bush appreciated counsel from his trusted advisors, he also made it clear that his actions and policies were his.

It's fair to criticize Mr. Rove now for stupid sh*t he says, but unfair to blame perceived past policy failures on him.

Unlike Valerie Jarrett to O!banuthink, Rove was no Svengali to Bush.  If anything, it was the other way around.

That is all true, but at the same time, Rove's electoral strategy required slicing the electorate with a scalpel and pandering to various non-conservative constituencies for the sake of victory. His "assigned task" was not only undertaken without consideration for conservative principles, but with an eye on bringing tenets of liberalism into the GOP.

He abandoned Reagan's (and Limbaugh's) strategy of articulating bold conservatism, and trusting the American people to choose correctly. Instead, Rove assumed the concrete existence of every narrative ever created by the Left, and pandered to every one of them. He gave us "compassionate conservatism", as if by its nature until GW Bush, conservatism was not compassionate. And "compassionate" was a euphemism for "more liberal".

I have no doubt that Rove was brought in to enact the GOP agenda with George W. Bush in the lead. I wouldn't suggest that Bush was Rove's puppet, or even Cheney's. But Rove did fulfill a role, and enact a strategy. He was in charge of that part of the Bush administration, and for that, "hate" may be a strong term, but I certainly loathe him these days. Especially when he puts forth bullcrap like this, that throw wrenches into the effort to move the GOP back into the conservative column.

[charlesoakwood]

Mr. Rove should be thanked for his statements, like the rest of
the left, the more he speaks the more he exposes who and what
he really is to those who have suffered under the illusion he is a
conservative or one who takes the Republic to heart.

Thanks Karl, keep it up.

[AmericanPatriot]

Karl, how do I despise thee.
Let me count the ways.

[EW1(SG)]

Brilliance in one area doesn't imply brilliance in all areas.  (There are exceptions, of course, notably me.)

I don't know that there is any reason to hate Karl Rove, since he very ably executed his assigned task:  getting Mr. Bush into the White House and keeping him there.

I am under the impression that Mr. Cheney had far more influence than Rove did on policy matters; and everyone seems to overlook the fact that Mr. Bush was quite opinionated and a commanding presence.

While it is very apparent that Mr. Bush appreciated counsel from his trusted advisors, he also made it clear that his actions and policies were his.

It's fair to criticize Mr. Rove now for stupid sh*t he says, but unfair to blame perceived past policy failures on him.

Unlike Valerie Jarrett to O!banuthink, Rove was no Svengali to Bush.  If anything, it was the other way around.

That is all true, but at the same time, Rove's electoral strategy required slicing the electorate with a scalpel and pandering to various non-conservative constituencies for the sake of victory. His "assigned task" was not only undertaken without consideration for conservative principles, but with an eye on bringing tenets of liberalism into the GOP.

He abandoned Reagan's (and Limbaugh's) strategy of articulating bold conservatism, and trusting the American people to choose correctly. Instead, Rove assumed the concrete existence of every narrative ever created by the Left, and pandered to every one of them. He gave us "compassionate conservatism", as if by its nature until GW Bush, conservatism was not compassionate. And "compassionate" was a euphemism for "more liberal".

I have no doubt that Rove was brought in to enact the GOP agenda with George W. Bush in the lead. I wouldn't suggest that Bush was Rove's puppet, or even Cheney's. But Rove did fulfill a role, and enact a strategy. He was in charge of that part of the Bush administration, and for that, "hate" may be a strong term, but I certainly loathe him these days. Especially when he puts forth bullcrap like this, that throw wrenches into the effort to move the GOP back into the conservative column.

I agree with that:  I don't know that Rove was ever what we could really call a "conservative."  And his speaking out on matters from a supposedly conservative point of view is not ... helpful.

He's entitled to his point of view, but it's just time to thank him for his service and move on.

[Pandora]

Rove is not a conservative; he's a Republican.  Big difference these days, when we're trying to drag the Party, and the country, back to the Right, particularly through the Tea Party candidates, which he has done his best to sink any chance he gets.  It's through his PAC that many of the EGOP incumbents are supported instead of the more conservative challenger, and, because of that, I have to wonder how many he managed to sink while GW was still in office that we weren't dialed in on then.

I believe it was Rove who advocated not answering to the media's lies and misrepresentations, viewing all that as "just distractions", while the press and the Democrats had many a field day spreading their poison, a great deal of which, since it wasn't repudiated then, still circulates today.

There is much about which we're never really going to know the truth, but it is also my belief that Rove was the public face of Bush's push for bestowing amnesty on millions of illegals, something a better advisor would have discouraged.

Rove was also a chief Palin-basher because she threatened the EGOP applecart.  Say what you want about Palin, she did not deserve the trashing she received from "the Architect".

So, yes; I despise him and everything for which he maybe, might, lemme see what day it is, stand.

[Libertas]

I just want to see his face shoved into the dirt, I don't even have to do it myself, I just would like to see it some day.

It's operatives like him that allow feckless spineless weasle RINO's, liberal repub's, mavericks...whateverthehell you call 'em, to thrive and survive!

To the tar pits with them all!

 

[Glock32]

They are the caste of political Druids, responsible for the peddling of unexamined wisdom like "must moderate in order to capture the mushy middle", "must reach out to the Hispanics", "must shove the social conservatives to the back row, occasionally throw them a bone so they keep voting for us" and on and on and on.

They are the epitome of a rent-seeking profession, one that does everything in its power to make its line of work seem overly complex and attainable only by the properly credentialed; all in order to protect their own position.

[charlesoakwood]

Exactly.  One need not sniff a dog pile in order to determine what it is.
He, on the other hand, exclaims it's a multifaceted odor that must be
dissected and all it's elements labeled and evaluated. 

No. Karl, it's sh!t and so are you.