Karl Rove looked back at the political campaign that
culminated in the 2012 reelection of President Obama and wrote a column that
was published in the Wall Street Journal on November 8 under the title: “The
President's 'Grand Bet' Pays Off”. Coincidentally, there appeared on the same
page on the same day an article by editorial writer Stephen Moore under the
title: “2004 All Over Again” which is about the political campaign that
culminated in the 2004 reelection of President George W. Bush.
What makes this coincidence a strange thing is that Karl
Rove was involved in both campaigns. He managed the campaign of the incumbent,
George W. Bush in 2004, and he ran a Political Action Committee that backed the
challenger, Mitt Romney in 2012. Thus, it can be seen that Rove's involvement
in the two campaigns was so symmetrical, the close juxtaposition of the two
articles easily lends credibility to the temporal relation known by the
scientific name: Synchronicity.
Look what Stephen Moore says about all this: “The Democrats stole a page out of the Karl
Rove play book to win … Bush won a second term by adopting the Karl Rove strategy
of demonizing his opponent, John Kerry.” As to the Rove article, it says
this about President Obama: “While
victorious ... his campaign was unprecedented in its negativity and ugliness
... [it] may have produced a re-election victory, but it will exact costs.”
Has Rove unwittingly cursed himself and the work he did during the 2004
campaign?
To get a sense as to what the answer may be, we need to
define the key word which is “demonize.” To this end, we say that to demonize
someone is to describe him as being demonic even though he does not deserve the
description. And this prompts the following two questions: Was John Kerry
demonized by the Bush campaign handled by Karl Rove in 2004? Was Mitt Romney
demonized by the Obama Campaign of 2012?
What Rove did in 2004 was seize on the Kerry claim that he
served his country well during the Vietnam war, and he disputed the claim in a
way that demonizing the man. The claim was to the effect that he commanded a
team of swift boat riders who carried out dangerous missions in the rivers of
that country. No, said Rove, the man did not serve as well as he claims he did.
To prove the point, Rove brought in a handful of former teammates who
contradicted some of the claims made by Kerry. Rove's attack was so effectively done that Kerry's campaign was derailed, and the expression “swiftboating someone”
entered the American political vernacular.
And swiftboating Romney is what Stephen Moore says the Obama
team did to the man's campaign. But is this true? The answer is no, it is not.
And this is because the Obama team did not say a thing that Romney did not
himself reveal about his financial dealings. All that the Obama people did was
interpret what Romney revealed then challenged him to give an alternative
interpretation by divulging information he preferred to keep hidden even though
it is the sort that everyone divulges.
What Romney did instead was to say that at the time he
engaged in that sort of accounting, the practice was legal. It is still legal,
he added, which is a bad thing. But he would like to change all that – which is
why he was running to be President. And this, my friend, is like a bank robber
saying he is running to be sheriff because he does not like what he was doing
which is why he wants to catch bank robbers. He will not divulge how he did
what he did but he wants the voters to trust him on this score. Well, this is
so mind boggling; it only deserves being called demonic.
As to what Kerry's former teammates said about him; it
amounts to less than a hill of beans. In fact, what they said shows only that
the worst thing the man could be accused of is that he exaggerated the
contribution he made to the war effort. And no matter which way you look at it,
this matter is no worse than seeing someone tell a story about the big fish
that got away. It comes nowhere near being at the level of a demonic act.
When you add to all this the consequences that will flow
from Romney's act, as well as the consequences that will flow from Kerry's act,
you reinforce the view that Romney was demonic and Kerry was not. This is what
the voters have done in their own minds – which is why they voted the way that
they did.
Remember the saying: You can fool some of the people some of
the time but...