| This weekend, I was surfing the tubes, and came across this excerpt of a new book over at Salon.com. The title of the book is Machiavelli's Shadow: The Rise and Fall of Karl Rove, and the author is Paul Alexander, who has written biographies of Sylvia Plath, James Dean, and Andy Warhol. He is currently a political correspondent for Bloomberg News.
I know the New Orleans bloggers have been all over it. But I want to highlight some grafs that caught my eye, as they show how Karl Rove installed Governor PBJ in the Governor's chair with the actions of the White House in the aftermath of the Federal Flood:
On Monday, August 29, 2005, at about 6:00 a.m., Hurricane Katrina slammed into the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. A category 5 hurricane until just before landfall, it was one of the worst storms ever to hit the Gulf Coast. Kathleen Blanco, the governor of Louisiana, had been briefed extensively about what to expect when the storm hit, which was why, on the Friday night before the storm reached the coast, she signed papers declaring Louisiana to be in a state of emergency. Based on what she had been told by her advisers and what she knew from being a native Louisianan, she understood that Katrina, creeping gradually toward land with sustained winds of a strength rarely seen in a hurricane, could prove to be catastrophic for Louisiana, and particularly for New Orleans.
The first evidence of Rove's involvement in the Katrina disaster occurred on Tuesday afternoon. "Rove understood what a nightmare this was for the president," Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana says, "so he went into high gear on the spin thing they're so good at in the White House. Rove had David Vitter, the Republican senator from Louisiana. I was at a press conference and David Vitter walked up to the mike and said, 'I just got off the phone with Karl Rove.' I looked at the governor and she looked at me, like, 'Why is David Vitter on the phone with Karl Rove?' I mean, he could have been talking to generals, the president himself, but Rove is just a political hatchet man."
I remember hearing in the BSM at some point that the Administration was saying that Governor Blanco had not signed the papers that would declare Louisiana to be in a state of emergency. I also find it interesting that Sinator Vitter would be more concerned with chatting with the White House's political advisor, rather military generals to help coordinate the federal government's relief mission in New Orleans.
In short, Rove was going to blame Blanco for the failure of the response in Louisiana, and to do that he was going to use Nagin. He had already set the plan in motion on Tuesday with Nagin, who, even though he was a Democrat, was so close to the Republican Party that some members of the African American community in New Orleans called him "Ray Reagan." In 2000, Nagin had actually contributed $2,000 to Bush's campaign when he ran for president.
Rove knew of Nagin's ties to the Republican Party, so more than likely Nagin could be convinced to level his criticism at Blanco and to support Bush when he could. Here was Rove's strategy: Praise Haley Barbour, the Republican governor of Mississippi; praise Michael Brown and FEMA; blame Blanco, the Democrat. It was not a stretch for Nagin. He and Blanco so disliked each other that in Blanco's last race Nagin had endorsed her opponent.
C. Ray seems to be a changed man after Katrina, at least with respect to his party loyalties. He's actually endorsed Obama, and is amazingly enough, a superdelegate to the Convention. His effectiveness as Mayor is altogether another story.
So, Louisiana, you can thank Karl Rove and the BSM for installing wonder-boy Governor PBJ in the Governor's mansion. Had they NOT played politics with people's lives, PBJ might just be another ineffective Republican congressman. Alas, we're going have to deal with him for at least 3 more years. |
