\nAn Exit Toward Soul-Searching<\/a>
As Bush Staffers Leave, Questions About Legacy Abound<\/strong><\/div>\nFoes 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." <\/p>\n
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." <\/p>\n
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." <\/p>\n
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<\/a> 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."<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\nTo have been the closest Presidential Advisor to the worst President in our history is one thing. To apparently not relize that he holds that distinction is quite another. That Karl Rove is a human being with rights and feelings is true. But it’s also true of a lot of people who live in custody of the State. There will never be a time when the conduct of this Administration will stand as anything other than as a standard of what not to do, what not to allow. Rather than leaving a legacy, they’ve made the task following them to restore the legacy we had before they destroyed it.<\/div>\n<\/p>\n
This article quotes the exiting Bushies who, like Rove, talk about second guessing, of hindsight. What they don’t get, or say, is, "Maybe things would’ve gone better if we played it straight, if we hadn’t lied"… <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An Exit Toward Soul-Searching As Bush Staffers Leave, Questions About Legacy Abound Foes 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, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1699"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1699\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}