I believe that some people—like me—still read The Wall Street Journal, and wouldn’t guess the once-invaluable daily will hit the scrapyard for at least another five years, preceded by The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times (but not The New York Times, the lone media company that’s figured out how to make money with interactive, non-news enticements) but the paper’s remaining editors continue to try the patience of customers. Perhaps this a romantic thought, but I’m certain that the late Robert Bartley—as I’ve noted previously, one of the most influential journalistic figures of the mid-to-late 20th century, even if denied the recognition of say, Katharine Graham or St. James Fallows (the conscience of Baby Boomers)—wouldn’t countenance the weekly appearance on WSJ’s editorial page of GOP strategist (and Fox News contributor) Karl Rove. It’s a hobbyhorse I bring up annually, not only for the questionable ethics but also because after a long and often successful career, the man has nothing to say.
(I’ll add that if Rupert Murdoch dies soon, his flagship newspaper is ripe for upheaval, depending upon which of his heirs wins out.)
Politically, it’s a dead zone until Labor Day, as sycophantic Democratic reporters and commentators suck up to Kamala Harris (the Joy!), and “The Nation’s Dad,” running mate Tim Walz, and will continue to so until their all-expenses-paid junket in late-August, also known as the Democratic National Convention, concludes, and the presidential campaign begins in earnest. Rove isn’t a Harris cheerleader, and is ambivalent about Trump, so you’d think he’d skip writing the column for several weeks. I doubt he needs the paycheck—who knows, maybe Rove pays the Journal to publish him—and either hit the county fair circuit in Texas or huddle with the GOP Senatorial Committee he’s “assisting,” which he discloses in his columns.
Rove’s August 8th column read like a primer on What’s Happened So Far in the 2024 election cycle, maybe instructional for a curious 12-year-old, but not any adult who follows politics.
He notes: “The contest blew wide open after President Biden’s catastrophic performance [June 27th debate]. In the aftermath, it looked like smooth sailing for Mr. Trump. And it would have been had Mr. Biden not withdrawn on July 21. That changed everything.”
Breaking news! Maybe the Journal had to delay its print edition to include Rove’s stunning revelations. I’ve read the Journal since I was a young man—and still remember my oldest brother’s irritation when the daily expanded to two sections—and it’s disheartening to see it become slipshod, not only in its egregious association with Rove, but in many areas of the paper. It was only in the past 18 months that I’d read a headline, and story, in the paper, and wonder, “Is that true?” Granted, that’s the norm in all media today, but it’s still a jolt.
In mentioning, correctly, some of Trump’s petty recent stumbles—hectoring Georgia’s Gov. Brian Kemp, again, over the 2020 election, making absurd claims about the size of his rallies, the “greatest hits”—Rove omits that the GOP candidate was nearly assassinated, under still-suspicious circumstances, surely worth including in his round-up. And then this novel observation: “This race will be decided by each party’s success in two fundamental tasks—turning out its base and persuading independent, swing voters.” Given his political jobs, it’s not surprising that Rove cites polls—Real Clear Politics’ aggregate, ABC/Ipsos, SurveyUSA, CBS—since he “crunches” numbers for a living, but you’d think George W. Bush’s campaign architect in 2000 and 2004 would add the caveat that all polls, some flimsy in methodology, are transitory, and change week-to-week. Rove’s not dumb, he knows this, and it’s insulting to his readers not to say so.
He’s a stalwart Republican, but still, a laundry list of Harris’ countless, and vacuous, slip-ups would at least make his column less dated and repetitive. Despite the current media hoopla over Harris’ “joy,” she’s the Chicago White Sox compared to Barack Obama’s Baltimore Orioles, and that’s largely missing from “the national conversation.” Obama didn’t do much as president, but I can’t recall a more dynamic candidate in modern politics, at least in 2008, the way he captivated crowds, owned those crowds, because he was by turns serious and cool. Yes, he could! Harris is a dud, no matter what the media—whose complicity in the cover-up of Biden’s infirmities, which any citizen with eyeballs noticed, hasn’t yet been adequately examined—regurgitates. (Maureen Dowd and David Ignatius were two prominent commentators, if a pundit today can be called “prominent,” who last year wrote that Biden wasn’t fit for a second term.)
Rove was an adviser to Trump’s unsuccessful campaign in 2020, and I’m not sure where his allegiance is today. The major newspapers in the United States today are rife with questionable decision-making—as Crispin Sartwell has written at Splice Today the practice of ghost-written op-eds under the byline of an elected official is noxious—but Rove’s sinecure at the Journal is flagrant.
—Follow Russ Smith on Twitter: @MUGGER2023