Collegiate Times

Last week, the Bush administration's most valuable aide, Karl Rove, announced that he would be leaving the White House at the end of the month.

Certainly, Rove has become a highly polarizing figure in politics mainly because of his undeniable success in developing winning electoral strategies for the Republican Party. So for that reason, it was not surprising that the retirement came much to the pleasure of many in the media.

Over the past week, media coverage has ranged from debates about whether or not Rove is even relevant anymore - as his party lost the most recent congressional elections - to arguments over how much impact he will have on the upcoming presidential race. But the most astonishing news coverage has come from the so-called "mainstream" liberal press.

Perhaps the most stunning display of this utter hatred and disdain for Karl Rove came from Bill Moyers last Friday on PBS's "Bill Moyers' Journal." Moyers works for the publicly funded network which claims to be middle-of-the-road. In his diatribe against Rove and the president, Moyers proclaimed that "Karl Rove figured out a long time ago that the way to take an intellectually incurious, draft-averse, naughty playboy in a flight jacket with chewing tobacco in his back pocket and make him governor of Texas was to sell him as God's anointed in a state where preachers and televangelists outnumber even oil derricks and jack rabbits."

Apparently, it never gets old for "mainstream" media pundits to take jabs at President Bush's intelligence. Furthermore, his rant shows just how much elite liberals look down upon people in Middle America who have religious beliefs that shape most aspects of their lives. In his eyes, Moyers can't see an electoral populace that can think for itself. Instead, he views this part of our country as uninformed and bigoted.

Once again in his own words, Moyers claimed that "Rove turned religion into a weapon of political combat - a battering ram, aimed at the devil's minions, especially at gay people. It's so easy, as Karl knew, to scapegoat people you outnumber."

In the most insulting of manners, Moyers goes on to smear this class of Americans that he views as lower than himself. According to Moyers, whatever Rove spews to a gullible and ignorant electorate - and as long as he is pulling the strings to the incapable puppet that is George W. Bush - the people will buy his snake oil and march behind him in lockstep.

In reality, however, the portrait that Moyers tries to paint of Rove's relationship with President Bush is a figment of the imagination of a person who just can't figure out how Rove helped Bush and the Republican Party win two elections in Texas and three nationally. Bill Moyers and people like him are in so much disbelief that they cannot comprehend how people who are so different from them could assume power. And now that Rove has decided to step down, he can't help but ramble on about how Rove and Bush have secretly conspired to take the nation hostage. In his mind, there just isn't any other explanation.

Later in his monologue, Moyers goes on attacking anyone associated with Karl Rove by stating that "if God is love, as rumor has it, Rove knew in politics to bet on fear and loathing. Never mind that in stroking the basest bigotry of true believers you coarsen both politics and religion. At the same time he was recruiting an army of the Lord for the born-again Bush, Rove was also shaking down corporations for campaign cash. Crony capitalism became a biblical injunction."

Amazingly, the PBS analyst not only believes that half of America is uneducated and prejudiced, he now slams religion in general as a way of life that should be looked down upon. As he views his fellow citizens, no one could possibly have a firm view of religion and not fall victim to political hijacking.

Finally, Moyers ends his tirade by attacking Karl Rove's personal religious views. In describing Rove's exit, he explains that Rove "asked God to bless the president and the country, even as reports were circulating that he himself had confessed to friends his own agnosticism. He wished he could believe, but he cannot. You have to wonder how all those folks on the Christian right must feel discovering they were used for partisan reasons by a skeptic, a secular manipulator."

Unfortunately for Bill Moyers, Rove never claimed to be agnostic but commented on how others used their religion as the foundation of their lives. Basically, Rove envied those people and lamented that he could not be a better person himself in spite of his religious views.

As for the rest of America that was "used for partisan reasons," most voters probably do not see Rove as a swindler. Instead they most likely made an informed decision to vote for the candidate who best matched their political views. Regrettably for Moyers, those candidates who represent everything he loathes about America won three elections in a row. Maybe it's not half of America that is out of touch. Maybe Moyers is the one who has no clue what's going on in his own country.