An Exit Toward Soul-Searching
As Bush Staffers Leave, Questions About Legacy AboundFoes assumed Rove’s resignation as deputy chief of staff was connected to his role in the U.S. attorney firings, but Rove scoffs at that notion. His critics assume all sorts of things he says are not true. "I’m the evil genius," he said, mocking his reputation. More seriously, he said, "I understand there are people out there who really don’t like me. And the question is, am I going to let it bother me? I ignore the ugly things that are said." Still, the notoriety comes with an edge. "I’m more conscious of my surroundings when I’m in public places."
The truth, he said, is that he really did leave to spend more time with his wife and college-age son, even if that has left him feeling guilty about leaving Bush. "I told the boss, ‘I feel like I’m deserting you in a time of war,’ " he said. "But you know, my wife is right. My wife is a two-time cancer survivor. How much time can I ask her to wait? I don’t feel sorry for myself."
This was a recurring theme in the course of an hour-long conversation. He is not depressed, he said more than once. "Hey, man, that was my life," he said. "It’s not my life now. One of the reasons I don’t think I’m depressed is I’m always looking forward."
Rove is not one for dwelling on decisions made or sharing blame for what went wrong. He has harsh words for Democrats who, he said, never accepted Bush as president. But he said he understands the price of the war. "It weighs on you a lot, and if you’re not aware of it at the time, you’re insane," he said. "People die. People from the same small town in Nevada where I grew up. . . . Is there second-guessing in terms of people hand-wringing? ‘Oh my God, if we’d only done it this way’? No. But is there discussion of did this work out the way we expected and if not, why? Yes."
The Iraq war is the biggest elephant in the room for the Bush White House. No pun intended. Check out Paul Krugman’s column in the NYTimes today. He picks up on the notion that Bush is not a true conservative. Krugman says he is doing conservative just fine and then he gives you many examples of what he means.( guess John Dean would probably disagree with him ) Krugman also says that things haven’t changed for spying on journalist, Dick Cheney wanted to search Seymour Hersh’s apartment in the 70s not in 2007. If the Iraq War was doing well, we wouldn’t be talking about all the other stuff the Bush Administration is doing.
“If the Iraq War was doing well, we wouldn’t be talking about all the other stuff the Bush Administration is doing.”
I hope that’s not right, but I worry about the same thing myself. Fortunately, like Nixon with Watergate and Reagan/Bush with Iran/Contra, these people seem to always make this kind of horrific mistakes. They did it in the past [Hoover]. With the exception of Lincoln and Eisenhower, they’ve been amazingly inept…