Rossputin.com: Rational Thinking About Our World

As Karl Rove announced his resignation in the Wall Street Journal, web sites across the political spectrum are fulminating about whether it's a good thing or a bad thing, about whether Rove is a genius or an idiot, about whether he'll still be the puppetmaster behind the scenes or will truly retire (at least for now.)

While it is somewhat interesting to see that people on the left and the right aren't particularly happy with Rove, the conservative side of the blogosphere seems happier to have him gone than the left does.

As usual, the wacked-out left can't seem to have a civil discussion. Consider this fairly typical comment from the DailyKos web site: "There was no way Bush was going to fire [Rove]... (even if he raped a child in the white house press room with cameras rolling...)" Or this paranoia from the same site "You can stow the "be with family" crapola. Something is up. No way Rove just quietly walks out for no reason. I'm battening down the hatches. This scares the hell out of me."

Is it my imagination or is it a bit odd for a political resignation to be deeply frightening?

Whereas we have this from the conservative Michelle Malkin: "But here’s what I find striking about Rove’s exit interview: Not a word here about the Harriet Miers debacle, the botching of the Dubai ports battle, or the undeniable stumbles in post-Iraq invasion policies. And not a word about the spectacular disaster of the illegal alien shamnesty, which will be the everlasting stain Rove leaves behind."

At least Malkin talks about ideas and policy when denigrating Rove...and for the record, I think she's pretty much on target here.

But I don't want to go too far in talking about all this Rove stuff because my real take on it is "big deal". Bush's brain certainly didn't seem to help the party in the last election and I believe he was fundamentally (pun intended) wrong to continue to place so much focus on the religious right rather than to realize that the GOP was abandoning and losing the fiscal conservative part of the Party base.

It is hard to imagine that there would have been any important role for Rove in working with the Republican nominee for the next Presidential election, much less with the next President. He is too tied to President Bush who is, whether you like it or not, very unpopular (although I agree with Rove that Bush's ratings are likely to improve noticeably before the end of his term.)

Rove is right that "it's time". It's probably a modest net positive for the GOP as it will remove the daily appearance of a target for Democratic hatred. On the other hand, it is hard to complain about the Democrats taking so much time and making themselves look so petty and useless as they pursue Rove, Gonzales and others whose only real offense that I can discern has been occasional incompetence in the midst of simply doing their jobs...in other words, the offense of being human.