Dead Duck

I couldn't let the resignation of Karl Rove pass without at least some snark. I tried to ignore the momentous event, I really did, even though I read the original self-serving resignation column in the WSJ on Monday. But David Corn (of The Nation) has a nice memorial that the Tribune published for some reason.

Here's my favorite passage:

Cut-and-run Karl has had enough:


Cut-and-run Karl has had enough. Bush strategist leaving a mess to be cleaned up

By David Corn | the Washington editor for The Nation magazine


...
Certainly, a White House aide who has engaged in the sort of political and policy chicanery that Rove has ought to lose the right to collect a paycheck from U.S. taxpayers. Take your pick: the Iraq war; Hurricane Katrina; the U.S. attorney scandal; the Valerie Plame leak; inaction on global warming; injecting politics into federal agencies to a new degree; the stem-cell veto; tax cuts for the wealthy; politicizing the war on terror ...

But leaving is too good for Rove. He was Bush's partner in the Iraq war, yet he (like other Bush aides, including, most recently, Dan Bartlett) are abandoning ship before the fight is done. Rove has argued that the Iraq war is essential for the survival of the United States (that is, for all of our families). So how can he walk away with the war not won?

In a June 2006 speech, Rove blasted Democrats for advocating “cutting and running” in Iraq. He said of the Democrats, “They may be with you for the first shots. But they're not going ... to be with you for the tough battles.” But isn't Rove now doing the same on a personal scale? He is departing the White House when the going in Iraq is as tough as it ever was.

In an earlier 2006 speech, Rove exclaimed, “America is at war ... To retreat before victory has been won would be a reckless act.” He was, of course, talking about a military retreat. But look at it this way: Rove helped Bush start a war, and now hundreds of thousands of American GIs (and millions of Iraqi civilians) have no choice but to live with the consequences of that decision. Why should Rove be allowed to bug out early? Wouldn't all the men and women enmeshed in the Iraq debacle like to spend more time with their families?

How nice for the Roves that he can walk away from the war.

When Bush campaigned for president in 2000, he and Rove dubbed their campaign plane Accountability One. The point: We're the responsible ones. But a fundamental principle of accountability is that you clean up the messes you create. Rove is not doing that. He will cash in. Maybe with speeches. Perhaps with a book or some private sector spot. Instead, he ought to volunteer for service with one of the few functioning provincial reconstruction teams in Iraq. Or perhaps he could conduct seminars on basic electoral skills for tribal leaders in southeastern Afghanistan. (Lesson No. 1: How To Demonize Your Enemy.) If overseas travel would place too much of a burden on his family, he could help clean up a neighborhood in New Orleans.

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