Frank Rich on "the Dark Heart of Rovian Republicanism"
Times Watch hasn't dealt with arts editor-liberal columnist Frank Rich in a while (especially since the Times Select pay to read program walled him and other columnists out of view). 
Folks, you haven't been missing a thing. Rich's anti-Republican frippery simply lights on different targets each week. This week it's retiring Bush advisor Karl Rove ("He Got Out While the Getting Was Good").
Rich introduced the main villain, Rove, through the side character ex-Virginia Sen. George Allen and his overblown "macaca moment":
"This incident had resonance well beyond Virginia and Mr. Allen for several reasons. First, it crystallized the monochromatic whiteness at the dark heart of Rovian Republicanism. For all the minstrel antics at the 2000 convention, the record speaks for itself: there is not a single black Republican serving in either the House or Senate, and little representation of other minorities, either. Far from looking like America, the G.O.P. caucus, like the party's presidential field, could pass for a Rotary Club, circa 1954."
Rich concluded with an equally ridiculous statement, quoting a writer for the New York Sun with a long-held hostility toward social conservatism.
"Last weekend's Iowa straw poll was a more somber but equally anachronistic spectacle. Again, it's a young conservative commentator, Ryan Sager, writing in The New York Sun, who put it best: 'The face of the Republican Party in Iowa is the face of a losing party, full of hatred toward immigrants, lust for government subsidies, and the demand that any Republican seeking the office of the presidency acknowledge that he's little more than Jesus Christ's running mate.' That face, at once contemptuous and greedy and self-righteous, is Karl Rove's face. Unless someone in his party rolls out a revolutionary new product, it is indelible enough to serve as the Republican brand for a generation."
Um, Frank - wasn't it Karl Rove that was out pushing hard Bush's plan to provide amnesty for illegal immigrants? But Rich either has a very twisted idea of what constitutes "hatred toward illegal immigrants," or realized the truth wouldn't serve his theatrical liberalism.
