The Rove Warrior

摘要

There can be an odd sort of solace in the idea that there's an evil genius behind a President you don't like. Without the image of a manipulative tactician calling the shots, how could the left live with the fact that the country has elected him again? Even if you're a conservative who loves the President, the occasional apostasy-like steel tariffs or that election-eve endorsement of gay civil unions-is easier to take if you can convince yourself that it's not him talking but that unprincipled operative, who has been whispering in his ear. No one knows better than Karl Rove how useful it is to have an easy explanation for George W, Bush when the real one is inconvenient. Being Karl Rove, he even uses a fancy word for it. "Heuristics," he says. "It's a shortcut to explaining something complex-or in this case, explaining away something complex."