My Open Letter to Karl Rove

Thank you for writing Courage and Consequence. We needed that. Many of us have lost faith in the political process. Your book renewed mine by helping me to recognize once again that politics in a democratic republic is necessarily messy. It also rekindled my respect for politics as “the great moving expression of our democracy.”
A distinct mark of your strength of character is that you were so openly able to accept responsibility for your mistakes. Some of your humorous stabs at Norwegians are so funny because they are so true. “Norwegians don’t dance, they twitch.” Painfully true. “The Norwegian who loved his wife so much he almost told her.” That was my father and my grandfather both of whom loved profoundly. I thought that ability to be self deprecating, that capacity to recognize personal failures might be distinctly Norwegian as well.
You also own up to mistakes made by Republicans who indulged in corrupt behavior and thus threw always their chance to make a real difference. It seems, however, that Republicans in general are philosophically more responsible, more principled. I think of Al Gore’s inability to stand firm on any issue, the way Reid and Obama sabotaged immigration reform and then railed about Republican racists, Kerry’s inability to clarify his many conflicting votes on Gulf issues. The liberal philosophy, that the end justifies the means, seems to erodes conviction and character which makes George W. Bush’s courage and character more startling by contrast.
I share your profound respect for George W. Bush. Truman said, “The buck stops here.” G.W. lived it. I especially respected him for accepting responsibility for the Katrina disaster when he could so easily have excoriated Mayor Nagin for refusing to comply with the National Hurricane center\s mandatory evacuation orders. He could have blamed Governor Blanco’s inability to make the decision about ceding control of the situation to the federal government. Instead he accepted full responsibly. I also respect both you and him for your ability to stand straight and tall in the midst of the political storms that raged around you.
The one measure I disagreed with GW on was the prescription drug program for seniors. I felt that wee seniors are enough of a burden on the federal budget, and that the program added unnecessarily to it. You hint that it didn’t. That it “used market forces to drive down the cost.” I hope that’s true, but I’ll have to do some more research to satisfy myself. After all, you are just a politician.
Thanks again for the book, for your dedication, for your work ethic. I’m exhausted!