Karl Rove is "No Conservative"

Two political veterans from the Reagan Era, wrote a bold op-ed in last Sunday's Washington Post calling Karl Rove "no conservative."

In their blistering attack of Karl Rove's recently published memoir, Craig Shirley and Donald Devine rip Karl Rove for what they see as a betrayal: the irresponsible fiscal policies, big government programs, and out-of-this-world spending of the Bush-Cheney Administration.

These former Reagan Administration advisors write:

Rove [in his book] concedes that Bush "went deep into Democratic territory to show how government can use the tools of capitalism to soften its rough justice" -- an admission that neglects state, local and individual alternatives to creating a just society, and that confirms our worst fears about hyphenated conservatism. 

The so-called "hyphenated conservatism" also led to a new trend under Rove-Bush-Cheney: the rise of criminal prosecutions of political opponents and incarceration of prominent Democrats.

Rove and friends took over the U.S. Department of Justice to make it an arm of the Republican Party. Many of the 93 U.S. Attorneys from coast to coast went after Democrats for political reasons.

This was unheard of in the era of Ronald Reagan.