Tuesday, September 28, 2004
Rove the political operative
In this post, Matt continues to hammer on Rove and wants to know what I think of Rove's morals. While Thason expresses exhaustion and annoyance with the whole thing which makes me somewhat inclined to skip the subject, I was asked a direct question, so I'll answer.
First, let me say that I think Rove's a pure political hack. Viewing Rove as a political hack, I have the same opinion of Rove's morals that I have of James Carville's and Terry McAuliffe's morals, i.e., they all have no morals. But that's what I expect of political hacks - they'll do/say anything to get their candidate elected.
Recall that this will be the first Presidential election that I'm not voting for the Libertarian candidate and thus only loosely associate myself with the Republican party (I am, however, on the CR mailing list at VT). So I have no dog in any fight in defending Rove and thus I did not defend him here and am rather perplexed as to why Matt's trying to get me to do so.
However, I believe that Rove is no worse than his Democratic counterparts. If pushed to justify this "no worse" assertion, we can kick it Roxanne style and someone can throw a dart at a dart board to pick a number, and I'll list that number of amoral things done by Carville and McAuliffe. While this is a bit of a tu quoque response (only a bit as I'm conceding the assertion - Rove's not a moral man - rather than merely changing the subject), it does, to me, neutralize any comparative advantage that either major candidate may have with respect to the morality of their campaign managers.
Plus it accurately reflects my sentiments about people I consider to be political hacks (which I wish to point out I view differently from partisans).
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First, let me say that I think Rove's a pure political hack. Viewing Rove as a political hack, I have the same opinion of Rove's morals that I have of James Carville's and Terry McAuliffe's morals, i.e., they all have no morals. But that's what I expect of political hacks - they'll do/say anything to get their candidate elected.
Recall that this will be the first Presidential election that I'm not voting for the Libertarian candidate and thus only loosely associate myself with the Republican party (I am, however, on the CR mailing list at VT). So I have no dog in any fight in defending Rove and thus I did not defend him here and am rather perplexed as to why Matt's trying to get me to do so.
However, I believe that Rove is no worse than his Democratic counterparts. If pushed to justify this "no worse" assertion, we can kick it Roxanne style and someone can throw a dart at a dart board to pick a number, and I'll list that number of amoral things done by Carville and McAuliffe. While this is a bit of a tu quoque response (only a bit as I'm conceding the assertion - Rove's not a moral man - rather than merely changing the subject), it does, to me, neutralize any comparative advantage that either major candidate may have with respect to the morality of their campaign managers.
Plus it accurately reflects my sentiments about people I consider to be political hacks (which I wish to point out I view differently from partisans).
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