When I heard that Karl Rove was resigning from the Bush White House, I was delighted. I have felt for some time now that Rove’s master plan for a permanent one-party system in the U.S. would destroy everything that this country has stood for. With a multi-prong strategy based on establishing loyal “Bushies” in every square inch of our government, he actually got pretty close. And, it’s scary when you think that he almost got away with it. But of course, the funny thing about life is that the more you try to control something, the more slippery it gets. And, nothing could be more obvious when you look at all the dirty little tricks that Rove has perpetuated on our democracy over the last 6 years. But, it seems in the last year or so though, the more Rove tried to impose and permeate conservatism in government, the more people became suspicious. And, in time, it became obvious that the whole White House gang was entrenched in their delusions of grandeur. People were starting to catch on. It’s like that old saying…”You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.” So, exactly how far did Rove go in fooling us?

The one thing you do have to admit about Rove is that he is a sly little fox. Coming from a background as a tobacco company representative, he was uniquely positioned to sell something that no one rationally should buy. So, he honed his skills of manipulating data and providing a vision that no one else could see. When Rove got into the political game, he used his skills to continue on his path of manipulation and deception.

From an article on the huffingtonpost.com, Rove was described as someone who aspired to a well-coordinated, well-planned takeover of the political process by any means necessary. It has even been suggested that he used the Iraq War to drum up a spectacular display of U.S. military power so that Bush could push through his domestic programs and grow executive power. It was reported that the domestic agenda was to “de-link people financially from government, so they would be weak and even easier prey for corporate manipulation”. He certainly has been successful on this front. And, being that the Iraq War has provided especially fertile ground for expanding the military industrial complex and feeding the massive contractor arm that supplies reconstruction and security, this was an unbelievable bonanza for war profiteering.

On top of all this, there was the hiring practices of the Iraq reconstruction phase called the Coalition Provisional Authority, in which people were hired for loyalty, not competence. And, this wasn’t just in Iraq. This applied to regulatory agencies, the judicial system and just about every other department in the U.S. government that was hiring. The typical bureaucrat hired by the Bush administration was young, a recent college graduate (Monica Goodling and Sarah Taylor) and hailed from places like Pat Robertson’s “Regent University”. These were high level positions requiring experience and skills but for which the only prerequisite was loyalty to Bush.

Then there was the seduction of the right wing media for which Rove artfully wooed with promises of “access” and “scoops”. They offered the press what they would call “facts” so they would be published as “scoops”, preying on the egos and vanities of strategically placed journalists such as Judith Miller and Bob Novak. Probably the most obvious of these tactics employed by Rove were strategically planned “leaks” that would promote or highlight hidden Bush agendas which of course the most famous was the leak of Valerie Wilson as a CIA operative.

There were also the “briefings” for which Rove and his staff held throughout the government, schooling people on how to use their power to help Republican candidates get re-elected. This, in itself, was in violation of the Hatch Act which was instituted to prohibit the very thing that Rove was doing. We also found out about his behind the scenes scheme of firing Attorney Generals because they didn’t aggressively pursue voter fraud. This was to keep low income and disenfranchised voters who were known to be Democrats out of the polling booths. Rove proved relentless in getting Republicans re-elected, no matter the consequences…even breaking the law. But probably the most disgusting to me was the insistence that any policy statement from the government mention George Bush favorably at least 3-times per page.

For all accounts, Rove was marching to the beat of Republican domination while everyone else was caught off guard, not really believing how far this man would go. But this was no ordinary attempt by a savvy political strategist. This was a master plan formulated by a man who would stop at nothing and who executed nearly successful plans to create a permanent majority by weakening the opposition to a point of irrelevance. His march to executive power and privilege have left deep footprints in the political landscape that left unchallenged, may have lead to an unaccountable and irreversible exercise of power.

The only thing that saved our democracy was the paradox of fear. The more Rove feared losing power, the more he lost it. Now he has left his vaulted office in the White House, skirted every Congressional subpoena and request for information and refused to be accountable for any of his actions. But, in the end, the world will be his judge and jury. For me, the only thing that I will remember him for is his failed master plan of domination. It provides history again with the lesson that a man like him, given any power, is dangerous indeed. Let’s hope he never regains dominion over anything and just rides into the sunset. Is it possible? Nah.