Reader comments
Rove's politics rooted in Utah experiences

A criminal is still a criminal, and that he has Utah roots is not something to be proud of.

A good article with things positive about this man Rove. In Houston the chronicle paints him as a demon.

Yes, of course, Rove approached it with a sense of service, not a will to power. Gag!

The best of luck to him. Just an advice though....Stay away from Rap Music....LOL!!

I am also a product of the JD Williams era at the Hinckley Institute at the University of Utah. Other high school and college teachers in Utah continue to have similar influence on other young women and men, pointing them toward public service.

It is also a sad fact that entering public service also can make you a target for people who cannot simply disagree over policies, but feel they must attack and destroy their political adversaries. As the Democratic-controlled Congress is demonstrating, the result is to display their own intolerance and incompetence.

The greatest public servants I have known have recognized the common interests they share with their political adversaries. Frankly, President Bush has continued to follow that model of restraint, despite the terrible provocations offered each day by those who place attacking him as more important than defending America.

If you really believe that Bush is a shining example of pursuing the common interest, you're even more delusional than the average Utahn. Are you serious? His policies and implementations have done nothing but exclude and alienate to the point that even his own party is trying to distance themselves. I'm not holding the Democrats blameless, but let's at least try and be fair.

Rove is responsible for the most extreme partisanship I've witnessed in my life time (1950-). But when someone resists his extreme partisanship, it's the resistor Rove calls the partisan. Rove is devoted to winning and power over all else, and to the undemocratic notion of achieving a "permanent Republican majority." But when someone resists his unconstitutional power grabs, it's the resistor Rove labels as power hungry, unamerican, and "trying to criminalize politics." Rove can credit his Utah influences all he wants. But if you want to see his real political soul mates (whether he's actually heard of them or not), look to legal theorist Carl Schmitt and others in 1930s Germany.

Interesting That Rove should be accused of excessive "partisanship" by someone who has no problem associating his political opponents with Nazis.

My experience has been that liberals trot out the "Nazi" label at the drop of a hat, and have long before Rove or Mr. Bush appeared on the scene. "Partisanship" only became a nasty word when the "permanent Democrat majority" that had continued more or less unbroken since the 1930s was ended in 1994.

There are two sides to this game, folks.

Does Rove's fond look back on his first campaign built on "incredible attractive girls...two on each arm" bother anyone else? The campaign tactics were and remain superficial and play to rhetoric rather than substance.

The Darth Vader of an evil empire (presidency) if finally gone, a little too late. This country will reel for decades for the misguidance, corruption, and illegalities that this man and his arrogant boss entrenched themselves and this country in. If there was ever a man who didn't understand the oath of office, it is G.W. Bush, and those zealots who guided him every step of the way to ruin the greatest nation on earth. May God, and all his minions help us recover, and we will because we are a resilient people. Can we last another fourteen months? That is the real question, and how many more families are going to suffer great loss and tragic demise of their loved ones?

Gee Barry...I am sooo glad you pointed out to all of us what a monster GW is! Interesting though...we have a House and Senate full of political opponents of GW and they don't seem to know all this really cool stuff you know, cuz they are not pressing charges, doing investigations and having impeachment votes. How stupid are they? And in an election cycle as well?? We should elect you to congress so you can go and do the right thing!

Seems to me that there is far more to the situation that we find ourselves in that we are privy to. Sometimes you can gleen the content or makeup of "something" by the interactions within the environment that the "something" resides in. For whatever reason that Bush has taken us down that paths that he has, he has had (in the final act...) the cooperation of both the House and the Senate. Watch the softening of the anti-war stance by the political players in this election cycle...There is someting to be learned about our policies. As for surviving the next 14 months...I think we'll will get through it...somehow! :)

Ironically, in seeking that "permanent Republican majority" at any cost, Rove destroyed the GOP and sold out any credibility it had as a party of fiscal responsibility.

He may have ensured that there will be an ongoing majority of Democrats for decades to come.

However, and moreover a continuation of a continuation did gain momentum for reasons best known to God, therefore, not much can be said, but a happening in the stage of world, so kept miraculously by the Creator for a Higher Purpose, since mega events are Higher Purpose oriented, so man will keep on talking and bickering. This is it. The bottom line. Nothing can be added, nor altered in a chain of events the course of which stood already defined.

Wow, certainly a man who could evoke such strong opinions and abundant venom from his opponents was a worthy adversary. The way people talk you would think he was the leader of the communist party and this was the 1950�s.

I think the Darth Vader analogy is a good one. This is a man of great intelligence and vision and his focus and unrelenting pursuit of that vision became his downfall.

Also, I think his high school campaign was just a prelude to the strategy that got him into the white house. Through his entire career his tactics where disturbing (see: swiftboating) but they where effective, devastatingly effective.

Thomas and his NAZI slur: WHO trots out the "Nazi" slur at the drop of a hat? The FIRST use of it here was YOURS, Thomas.

What you've just done is demonstrate how poisonous Rove was to this country. Throwing out baseless ad hominems when there's no argument to be made, is par for the course.

We have lots of cheese in Utah if any of the fleeing rats in Washington are hungry. Let the band play on!

The Darth Vader.... Can we last another 14 months...

Ain't it awful. I guess maybe Hillary will be the answer! Give me a break!

Being in that age group, I don't think Rove actually won the election for student body president at Olympus. Though a hard fought campaign, I think Brian Moench, now a Utah radiologist and a liberal, served as SB president.

Maybe Rove just pretended to be SB president, the way he's been pretending to be a Republican all this time