Professor Moriarty, Sherlock Holmes arch rival, is a paradigm for the evil genius – the fictitious brilliant master criminal so popular in much of fiction. Such characters march across the pages and screens of our murder mysteries, spy stories, science fiction thrillers, and action "guy flicks." But do such people exist? More to the point – is Karl Rove such a character, as he is often portrayed?
His Wikipedia entry chronicles the sea of "dirty tricks," proven and unproven, that characterize his career as a political conultant. It’s not a pretty story – something more in the range of anything goes, hit and run, character assassination. But leaving aside his immorality and poor relationship with truth, there’s something else that is very not brilliant about his way of playing the political game.
I don’t know if he’ll get away with it or not. My point is that there’s nothing brilliant going on here. Like Cheney, his predictions are usually wrong – smoke and mirrors. Like the petty scam artist, he’s moving on to the next town. Only, for him, he rose too far. There is no next town. Washington D.C. was it.
Whatever the personal ambitions of these flawed souls, they’ve already failed. What remains to be determined is if the electorate is still vulnerable to the kind of political game Rove and his buddies played. Can someone else play on our fears, our prejudices, our religious affiliations in the way Rove and Company have gotten away with? Either we will demand honesty and integrity, or we’ll have forgotten that such things exist and follow the next Rove-esque line of malarky.
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