So, can we please, please stick a pin once and for all into the "deification" balloon of Karl Rove by Democrats?
Nothing could be more absurd than intellectually intimidated Democrats by Republicans! Hey, will everyone please WAKE UP? The Democratic/Progressive Party (progressives MUST be included in this) is the ONLY truly literate, scientific, and broadly civilized party in America.
WE pass all the bills supporting medical research, all levels of education, scientific research in general, the fine arts, life and death alternative energy projects, etc.
In short, the Democratic/Progressive Party is the party of science, culture, and human civilization at its best.
But perhaps most of all, the D/P Party is the party of conscience, compassion, and humanity. Said differently (if a little oddly), if Jesus Christ were alive now and he wanted to participate in politics, you tell me, would he be spending time with Karl Rove? Or, more generally, would Jesus Christ (or Buddha or Mohammed or the Hebrew Prophets) be members of the Republican Party or the Democratic Party? Every heart in America knows the answer to this question would NEVER be the Republican Party.
But back to Rove. Please think about this. There's something profoundly self destructive and limiting about putting other people on "pedestals".
Remember the book, "Bush's Brain"? This came out when people were practically genuflecting in front of the Republican PR creation of Karl Rove. I half expected little Rove "holy cards" or small statuettes to be handed out on street corners. Of course, the "Bush's Brain" book (which was NOT deifying Rove, by the way) was enormously entertaining in the sense that discovering you were the "brain" of George W. Bush would be a ghastly realization.
Indeed, I for one am perfectly willing to think of Rove as Bush's pea brain.
However, such grotesqueries aside, let's focus on the heart of the matter.
May we try out this syllogism?
(a.) Karl Rove gets results.
(b.) People who get results are intelligent.
(c.) Therefore, Karl Rove is intelligent
Formerly, the argument is correct, but the problem is the second claim (or premise), which is now going to be unconditionally challenged.
The "result getting" of Rove is not proof of exceptional intelligence, but proof of exceptional evil.
Karl Rove is merely a high profile example of a phenomenon all of us have seen over and over again (usually starting in school). People who "fight dirty" almost always win. This is blatantly obvious in sports competitions when, say, a fighter keeps "hitting beneath the belt" of another fighter. Well, if he keeps getting away with it, the dirty fighter is going to win.
But this isn't only true for sports, it's also true of business (I bet several of you have been on the butt end of dirty business tactics), and its ALSO TRUE FOR POLITICS.
Hence, this is the see spot run simple explanation of Rove's "result's". Yes, the schemes he cooks up can be somewhat convoluted and secretive, but that's not what makes them work (of course, most of his schemes actually HAVEN'T worked, but that's another story).
What make's Rove's strategies work (when they do), is not his "genius", but the fact that he is exploiting the good will and decency of people who DON'T fight dirty. If EVERYONE fought dirty, Karl Rove would be invisible, but the humanly admirable fact (even though it's accompanied with vulnerability) is that most human beings wouldn't dream to sinking to Karl Rove tactics.
So, intelligence belongs to Democrats, not Republicans (and the objective evidence for this is mountainous) and it is very counter productive not to take credit for kick ass IQ, especially when it manifests itself in society in such a variety of forms.
Not to be unkind, but compare EITHER of the Clinton's to Sarah Palin and John McCain. Enough said?
And no, I certainly haven't forgotten our splendid Barack Obama and Joe Biden, but it's almost cruel to remind Republicans that class, intelligence, and humanity are qualities they can only see, but never touch.
And while we're at it, why not compare an amphibian (look it up, George) to George W. Bush (the first president in American history to have an IQ in the negative numbers).
God in heaven, guys and gals, if Palin, McCain, Bush, and Rove are the best the pugs can come up with, it's time to seriously examine the thesis the Republicans are a different species. I guess at least they're bipedal, erect primates.
Another important aspect of fighting dirty is that even if team A (the dirty fighting team -- or political party) wins and gets results in the short run, frequently once team B (that's us) realizes their losses have NOTHING to do with the prowess of team A and/or the ineptitude of team B, this can be a liberating moment of truth, and team B comes out of the locker room after half time "pumped up" for victory, victory, and nothing but victory -- and after the game, the remnants of team A are shoveled off the field.
So, forget the prowess of Karl Rove. He doesn't have any. He's just a piece of filth who takes advantage of kind and innocent people.
And if you're a Democrat, please celebrate the fact that you belong to the American Party that has ALWAYS been the cutting edge of civilization.
One last thing. Perhaps it’s a little weird for me to say this, but my Doctorate is mathematics and I doubt Karl Rove couldn't pass ANY of my math classes.
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W. Christopher Epler (Bill)
ps: You folks can delete this if you wish, but I’m going have a little fun and cook up 3 o4 math questions as a kind of pretend entrance exam for Karl Rove. Who knows, maybe he’ll answer. J I’ll make them very conceptual so we don’t get bogged down in mathematical notation or symbology. I’ll also include some “answers” below – naturally, Karl will look at them in advance.
(1.) Speaking of which, here’s a kind of philosophical math question. True or false. The essence of mathematics IS the notation/symbology, e.g., the notation for derivatives and integrals.
(2.) What happens when you try to find the indefinite integral for the pdf (probability density function) of the normal random variable? Note, the graph of this pdf is the famous bell shaped curve.
(3.) The quadratic equation has the quadratic formula for its closed for solution. Does the fifth degree (quintic) polynomial also have a closed from solution? If not, why not?
(4.) Fermat’s Last Theorem argued that x^n = y^n + z^n (sorry about the carrot notation for exponents) was true only if n = 2. For example if n is a counting number greater than 2, it would always be false. This was undecided for hundreds of years, but fairly recently a proof was found. Did the proof confirm or deny Fermat’s conjecture?
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Ok Karl, here’s the dope;
(1.) Absolutely not. Indeed confusing mathematics with its symbology may well be the most common misunderstanding of mathematics. Math is what the notation is “about”, not mathematics itself, almost exactly like musical notation which is itself not music, but “directions” that tell you what to do to make music. Now of course math music is mental, but it can still be exceedingly beautiful.
(2.) Nothing happens because the normal pdf is a transcendental function without a corresponding indefinite integral. Said differently, there IS NO function whose derivative is that pdf. So, April Fool, not all functions can be integrated.
(3.) No, there is no closed form solution (even though there is for linear, quadratic, cubic, and quartic polynomials). The “why” question was a dirty trick, since this discovery helped to open up a vast area of abstract math called modern algebra (VERY different from ordinary algebra).
(4.) Yes, it was proved to be true a few years ago, but take a deep breath before you look at the proof, because it is a very long, convoluted monster of subtlety.
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What do you think, folks? Did “genius” Karl Rove answer even one question?
