Scott McClellan: Bush Should Have Fired Rove; Missed Opportunities After ‘04 Election
I’m getting tired of covering this McClellan book saga so this will probably the last post on the subject (at least until something worthy breaks), however, there are a couple of final points that I feel need to be made and discussed.
First, McClellan is arguing, rightfully so, that Karl Rove should have been fired following the CIA leak case:
President Bush broke his promise to the country by refusing to fire aide Karl Rove for leaking a CIA agent’s identity, said Scott McClellan, the president’s chief spokesman for almost three years.
“I think the president should have stood by his word and that meant Karl should have left,” McClellan said Sunday in a broadcast interview about his new tell-all book, a scathing rebuke of the White House under Bush’s leadership.
I agree that Karl Rove should have been fired, but for a different reason–one that McClellan acknowledges as well:
McClellan, the press-secretary-turned-administration critic, offers an intriguing narrative of the few months after the 2004 election — a period that he now sees as a badly missed opportunity for a troubled White House to right itself.
Now I don’t know what McClellan is referring to when he speaks of missed opportunities, but Bush did miss and/or screw up three significant opportunities:
- Social Security Reform
- Significant Tax Reform
- Immigration Reform
Let’s go through these. First, Bush and his administration abjectly mishandled his push for the privatization of a portion of Social Security. This was a fantastic idea that unfortunately relied on a horrible communications plan.
As you may recall, Bush and his communication team (lead by Dan Bartlett, a fierce critic of McClellan’s book) rolled out the Social Security plan by drawing attention to the urgent need to act on the current system. This is was the right approach, however, it was repeated ad nausium and to the detriment of Bush’s plan.
His plan was not overly complicated, but the average American needed to hear the plan explained more than he/she needed to hear about the pending bankruptcy of the current Social Security system. They had already sufficiently explain the current problem.
This cost Bush with his Republican Senate.
Who played a key role in this policy rollout plan? Answer: Karl Rove.
Why did it fail? Because Rove and Bartlett treated it like a political campaign, as a opposed to a solution to a problem.
Second, what about significant tax reform? I’m not talking about tax cuts. I’m talking about overhauling or eliminating the current tax system.
Bush promised to give this serious thought, but because we was reeling from his Social Security defeat, all he managed to produce was a report by a commissioned panel to look into tax reform options. Wow. Thanks for that.
Again, I’ll be willing to bet Karl Rove, in his increased policy position, had something to do with this.
Meanwhile, Bush installed such longtime trusted friends as Condoleezza Rice at State and Alberto Gonzales at Justice, while giving expanded powers to Karl Rove– “ensuring that political considerations would never be far from the center of any policy conversation during the second term.” At the same time, Secretary of State Colin Powell was out — taking away, in McClellan’s estimation, a source of independent perspective.
Finally, something I feel quite certain Rove was behind: “Comprehensive Immigration Reform.”
Rove was dying to create long-term Republican dominance, and he sought to achieve this by securing the newest and one of the largest voting blocs out there, Hispanics. He long considered Hispanics natural Republicans because of their widespread Catholic background.
I’ll bet he saw granting amnesty as a way to attempt to legally buy several million votes for Republicans down the road, helping to accomplish is lifelong goal.
So, you see, when Scott McClellan talks about Bush taking on a permanent campaign mentality, I believe that it’s a function of Bush elevating Rove from a political consultant to a more policy-oriented position.
I often wonder what Bush’s presidency would have been like without Rove playing such an important policy role.
I wrote a piece for the old site, and in it I make the claim the Karl Rove may indeed be known in history as “The Architect,” but not in reference to his helping George W. Bush get elected, but rather as “The Architect” of the demise of the Republican Party as we know it.
The last point I want to make here is that, yes, there appears to be some liberal motivation behind McClellan’s book–especially if George Soros indeed played a role–but just because his thoughts and opinions might originate from a liberal way of thinking, or because he’s seeking revenge, doesn’t necessarily make them wrong. Usually this is the case but not always.
Many objective conservatives would agree with some of what he claims.
He’s right:
- Rove should have been fired
- Bush permanently campaigned, rather than governing
- Bush did miss opportunities
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