Mark Phillips: The American Question
3/28/04: He can dish it out...
Activists brought reality home to Bush Svengali Karl Rove today, demonstrating in numbers
outside his house in suburban Washington, D.C.
Several hundred people stormed the small yard of President Bush's chief political
strategist, Karl Rove, pounding on his windows, shoving signs at others and
challenging Rove to talk to them about a bill that deals with educational opportunities
for immigrants.
Protesters poured out of one school bus after another, piercing an otherwise quiet,
peaceful Sunday in Rove's Palisades neighborhood in Northwest, chanting, "Karl,
Karl, come on out! See what the DREAM Act is all about!"
The crowd then grew more aggressive, fanning around the three accessible sides of
Rove's house, tracking him through the many windows, waving signs that read
"Say Yes to DREAM" and pounding on the glass. At one point, Rove rushed
to a window, pointed a finger and yelled something inaudible.
[Organizer Emira] Palacios said that Rove was "very upset" and was
"yelling in our faces" and that Rove told them "he hoped we were
proud to make his 14-year-old and 10-year-old cry."
Washington Post, 3/29/04.)
Rove's shock over the temerity of these activists betrays a core truth about
right-wing conceptions of
democracy.
The people do not rule. At best, the people are a passive mass to be manipulated through
imagery and
narrative.
At worst they're in the way. They're not to be engaged with in dialog.
Palacios, trembling and in tears herself, said, "He is very offended because
we dared to come here. We dared to come here because he dared to ignore us. I'm
sorry we disturbed his children, but our children are disturbed every day.
"He also said, 'Don't ever dare to come back,'" Palacios said.
"We will, if he continues to ignore us."
ibid.)
Rove can dish it out, but he can't take it. He's a chicken-hawk, like Bush, and Cheney,
and Limbaugh, and Wolfowitz, and so many others on the right.
Maybe one day the people will box his
ears, and set fire to his tie. As he evidently fears they will.
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