Thursday, March 23, 2006

Karl Rove Catches the Zeitgeist

From the NYT this morning:

By most accounts inside and outside the administration, Mr. Rove is relentlessly cheerful, presenting himself as an optimistic face in a gloomy White House. One person who met Mr. Rove said he attributed Mr. Bush's problems more to external events, in particular Hurricane Katrina and Iraq, than to anything the White House did wrong.
Think about that a moment. Hurricane Katrina was an "external event," until it blew itself out. But five days of TV coverage of people stranded in a major metroplitian area with no rescue in the offing, with the federal government, the National Guard, and the military, all apparently unable to respond, and still it's "nothing the White House did wrong."

Iraq, of course, was not even an act of God (except, perhaps, in George W.'s twisted theology). How is it that neither of these events are the responsibility of the White House?

Could Rove more perfectly express the American id? I honestly believe that, if he didn't exist, America would have to invent him. The spiritus mundi demands self-expression, and Rove seems to be it for the Americus mundi. He is the best example of the conjunction of Freudian and Jungian psychology incarnate that I have ever seen.

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