Rove Love Hits Rhetorical Peak

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Lots of Rove coverage on MoJoBlog the last few days, I know. But this had to be pointed out.

Laura blogged yesterday about Jay Rosen’s very good and very complex take on why the national press slobbers over Karl Rove. Sometimes, though, it’s simple: the writer is a party hack, Rove is the great god of party hacks, enough said. For the best example we’re going to get in this post-resignation bubble, check out this take from Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard (via The Plank):

Rove is the greatest political mind of his generation and probably of any generation.

That sounds about right, Freddy boy. In reverse order, here are my top ten. See if you agree.

10. St. Thomas Aquinas
9. Karl Marx
8. Thomas Hobbes
7. Jean-Jacques Rousseau
6. Plato
5. Machiavelli
4. Thomas Jefferson
3. John Locke
2. Aristotle
1. Karl Rove

Not making the list: John Rawls, Immanuel Kant, John Stuart Mill, and Confucius.

But Karl Rove, definitely number one.

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

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