{"id":521,"date":"2007-08-16T14:34:00","date_gmt":"2007-08-16T14:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stallioncornell.wordpress.com\/2007\/08\/16\/hey-rove-divide-this"},"modified":"2007-08-16T14:34:00","modified_gmt":"2007-08-16T14:34:00","slug":"hey-rove-divide-this","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/hey-rove-divide-this\/","title":{"rendered":"Hey, Rove! Divide This!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Karl Rove\u2019s departure from the White House has renewed media interest in the word \u201cdivisive,\u201d which is typically hurled about by pundit types as some sort of epithet. The action line reads as follows:<\/em> \u201cRove was a scumbag! A weenie! A living turd, animated by his own hellspawn bile! And why? Because he was divisive! DIVISIVE! DIVISIVE, I tells ya!\u201d<\/p>\n

I honestly don\u2019t understand this.<\/p>\n

Politics, by its very nature, is \u2013 and ought to be \u2013 divisive. If you believe in one thing and your opponent believes in something else, that principle divides you \u2013 hence, division: a product of divisiveness. Show me a politician who is not divisive, and I\u2019ll show you somebody who doesn\u2019t stand for much of anything. THAT\u2019S the guy we want back in Washington \u2013 the guy who\u2019s everyone\u2019s buddy. So on the day when he\u2019s asked to cast a vote on, say, whether or not we go to war, he takes a long lunch and, when the tally is counted, he makes excuses for his absence and gives all the other senators hugs. This would inspire complete unity among those who knew the guy \u2013 100% of them would think the dude was a total boob.<\/p>\n

So am I a jerk or what? What\u2019s wrong with me? Can\u2019t we all just get along?<\/p>\n

Actually, we can, which gets to the root of what I think the \u201cdivisiveness\u201d weenies are really whining about. They want us to keep our divisions in perspective and be pals. And it\u2019s true that some divisions are relatively unimportant. Actually, most divisions are relatively unimportant. Coke and Pepsi drinkers can set aside their differences and make out with each other, provided the lust that unites them is more important than their divisive taste in carbonated drinks. And how many folks refuse to speak to the people who think John Lennon was more talented than Paul McCartney? I mean, besides me?<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve spent quite a bit of time on the Internet being divisive, mainly because I\u2019m pure evil. It makes me chuckle to see how upset I can make people when I tell them that the new “Battlestar Galactica” (i.e. Galactica In Name Only) sucks. I thoroughly enjoy the fact that there\u2019s a loonbat who thinks I\u2019m on the payroll of Universal Studios. The truth is that I\u2019d be happy to go to dinner with a GINOid or a Universal hack. I\u2019m not willing to spurn a human being who likes different TV shows than I do. (I would likely spurn Languatron if I met him in person, but I\u2019m betting I could justify that on hygienic grounds.)<\/p>\n

We overlook tiny divisions and manage to work, live, and even have children with people with whom we have disagreements. Most of us can muddle through the whole squeeze-the-toothpaste-tube-from-the-bottom-or-the-top dilemma without coming to blows. But bigger disagreements have to be settled in inherently divisive ways. And that\u2019s probably as good a definition of politics as anything.<\/p>\n

I remember back during the election of 1996, Stephen R. Covey was on “Hardball with Chris Matthews.” Matthews asked him what advice he had for the two candidates, and Covey, who was on Seven-Habits-autopilot, said that the first thing that Dole and Clinton had to do was to \u201cthink win-win.\u201d When Matthews noted the obvious, which was that elections are \u201cwin-lose\u201d by their very nature, Covey scoffed at what he considered to be Matthews\u2019 \u201coutdated\u201d thinking. (He didn\u2019t offer much in the way of what thinking was up to date at the time.)<\/p>\n

As near as I can tell, divisive elections are the only ones that work. Dictators are pretty good at getting unanimous vote totals, but they also kill people who vote against them. I like divisiveness better than death squads.<\/p>\n

By Covey\u2019s reasoning, every football game would end in a tie, which would mean a lot fewer people would be interested in football, which would be fine by me, because the football season usually pushes the start of the new season of “The Simpsons” almost into December. But I divisively digress.<\/p>\n

Rove is divisive? For heaven\u2019s sake, life<\/em> is divisive. Politics is probably a better solution to this than bloodshed, but sometimes even going to war is necessary if the division is deep enough. And, yes, I recognize the divisiveness of that position. But if you want to kill me, I\u2019m not interested in finding middle ground. That\u2019s why I scoff at the folks who self-righteously stand on platitudes like \u201cwar is not the answer\u201d or \u201cthere\u2019s got to be a better way.\u201d There\u2019s got to be a better way? Well, what is it? Because I\u2019d love to hear it, but I\u2019m not going to let someone drop a bomb on my family while you\u2019re trying to figure it out.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m just divisive that way.<\/p>\n

So was Karl Rove divisive during his tenure in the White House? Sure. And good for him. Abraham Lincoln was pretty divisive, too. Then again, so was Adolf Hitler. Being divisive isn\u2019t inherently a good thing. It\u2019s just the nature of the beast. What really matters is which side of the divide you\u2019re on.<\/p>\n

Languatron ought to bathe more often.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"Karl Rove\u2019s departure from the White House has renewed media interest in the word \u201cdivisive,\u201d which is typically hurled about by pundit types as some sort of epithet. The action line reads as follows:<\/em> \u201cRove was a scumbag! A weenie! A living turd, animated by his own hellspawn bile! And why? Because he was ... Read more<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=521"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}