Homocon

The results have been nothing short of astounding for the modern Republican Party.

In November of 2002, Time Magazine labeled Karl Rove as "the President's most trusted political strategist and arguably one of the shrewdest men in Washington" for his successful campaign to reshape the political character of the House and Senate, while in 2004, Barbara Walters dubbed Rove one of "The Most Fascinating People of the Year".

A self-described back-scenes nerd, yet a bane to the chattering classes across the country, Rove lifted himself out from beneath the rootless shadow of a broken family (he never knew his father, his stepfather walked out when he was 19, and his mother committed suicide 12 years later) through politics, realizing access to his own American dream by diving headlong into the rarified obsessions of the ideologue (he was a vocal Nixon supporter from the age of nine). While his peers were waxing their cars and cruising for girls, Rove was learning the ins and outs of the power structures in America, resulting in a shrewd eye for raw talent and a near Olympian determination to win at all costs.

What Rove was able to recognize throughout the decades of his increasingly deft political maneuvering is that leadership is about what's economically and psychologically healthy for the country in the long haul, rather than just what feels good at the moment. Nearly the entire mainstream media snorted in derision as George Bush, Rove's hand-picked candidate, was proffered as a presidential candidate for the 2000 race, yet each subsequent year after Bush's election to the office has shown a flourishing of the former fly-boy into a highly competent, eminently practical and deeply caring man.

Thank you, Karl Rove, for your mordant wit, your keen intellect and your ruthless ambition, for your firm guidance in transforming the Republican Party into a modern and internationally engaged arm of conservative thought, and, especially, thank you that Al Gore and John Kerry never became Presidents of these United States.

"C'mon everybody. Go, Howard Dean!" -- Karl Rove

OFF TOPIC:
Very interesting read regarding Bill Clinton's "self-loathing" remarks about Republican strategist Arthur Finkelstein.

Money quote: "On the one hand, it's hard to see how a self-respecting gay person could support a party that deployed such hateful, untruthful campaign tactics. On the other hand, it's easy to see why 23 percent of gay and lesbian Americans voted to re-elect President Bush when the alternative was John Kerry, who last showed courage on a boat in Vietnam in the 1960s."

Indeed.