Will Karl Rove’s iPhone kill us all?
President Bush’s former Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove was recently interviewed by NewsBusters on a number of topics. Two interesting revelations made during the course of the interview (at least as far as Macenstein‘s readers are concerned) are that not only does Rove own an iPhone, but he also has a MacBook Air, which his wife covets.
While we’re all for any influential politician touting Apple gear, Rove’s iPhone quote is a bit ominous…
“ I love it. My life has changed. I have a shred of coolness. I’ve got my 3,500 people in my addressbook on the phone, I can sync my calendar. I keep track of my modest little stock investments. I can check the weather of my house in Washington, my house in Florida, my boy at school, my hunt-lease in south Texas. I can surf the web, I’m just–I get part of my email there.
I mean it is just shocking how much better, how much more productive I am. I no longer carry around a giant address book, if I don’t have my calendar close at hand, I can quickly check it out of my– I don’t have to carry, I used to carry several notecards, now it’s just as easy to scribble on my little notepad, I can take photographs and forward them on immediately, it’s just remarkable.”
Say what you will about Rove, but I doubt even his fiercest critics would have described him as “unproductive“. The fact that he is now armed with an iPhone which he himself claims makes him “shockingly” more productive… well, the mind boggles at what he might produce.
Where’s that iPhone virus we’ve all been hearing about when you need it?
wow, Karl Rove, NOT the next apple true story about iPhone. I definitely don’t want this guy to be raving about the iPhone or mac book air. Mac’s are definitely simple to use, but when knuckle heads like Karl Rove get them I am really not sure that is the image of mac user that we want to see. Whoever pitched him the phone and laptop, thanks a lot, we all look a bit less intelligent now.
@ Scotland
Reading your comment makes me feel less intelligent, beeing an Apple fan and all.
They say “all publicity is good publicity”.
“scribble on my little notepad”? Is he using a jailbroken iphone?
Everyone breathe; I for one think it is great. I see him on Fox news with his MBA and think, good I hope that Apple sells more.
Says Karl, “I can fire some federal prosecutors for political reasons, smear a war hero, and spread rumors about a candidate having an illegitimate black child all from one device! My life has never been easier.”
Remember there are some of us Apple Republicans out there. Get a grip. Imagine what we think all of ya’ll are doing with your iPhones.
@ Scotland
Since when is owning Apple products about upholding some mythical reputation of intelligence? Apple just makes “really great products” that “everyone wants to own”. What difference does it make to you or me whether people of lesser than average intelligence own Apple products? Is this mission of yours to create an image of super-smart creatives really worth the cost of effectively alienating those who don’t consider themselves to be intelligent or creative? No, it is not.
It’s people saying stuff like you just have that make me not want to be a Mac user.
Have to agree with you Ethan. I love Apple products. My company recently switched and most of the guys I work with have become fanboy extreme’s. Which has spread to myself included. The machines are just phenomenal.
The downside, I’m seeing the smugness and obnoxiousness of the Apple culture. I mean who hasn’t seen the “Hi, I’m a Mac.” commercials? Haven’t you wanted PC to punch that smug little prick bastard in the face? Lucky I know how good Apple products are, or those commercials would certainly drive me away from Mac. Unfortunately, after seeing posts like Scotland’s, not much is different from a lot of the online Apple community either. 🙁
I happen to be as conservative as they get, but if you think I’d be against any Clinton, Obama, Kennedy, owning a mac-anything, I tend to think more intelligently. Advertising is advertising…
“Think Different”
(Pull your head out of your ass)
please remove your political immaturity from your mac evangelism…
Thanks
I’m a conservative, and I am a Mac/iPhone user, have been since System 8 (remember?!)
I don’t know if Rove is the most stand-up guy on earth, but I don’t think he’s a seedy villain either, and NOBODY should believe he is anything but brilliant as far as political strategy goes. I have worked on a lot of Right Wing political action groups and party campaigns, and about 60% of the organizations I’ve worked with are Mac users too, because they are basically marketing agencies who require graphic arts capabilities that are not available on PC’s.
Also, liberalism used to be very libertarian – standing up for rights, liberties, and separation from big government. Today, left-wing politicians monolithically support the growth of government dependance via high taxation and social programs.
I am a conservative for the same reasons I am a Mac user: I believe in efficiency, the easiest solution is almost always the best solution, I don’t like to support the big guy (Microsoft being like a lumbering, federal gov’t), and I truly believe that accountability for quality can only be held on a smaller level (Apple is small enough to be held accountable similarly as local gov’t is small enough to be held accountable).
This post is too long already.
I agree with the conservatives on these responses. Being a Mac user is not a guarantee that you’re a liberal. Rush Limbaugh is a great example of this. We have more to fear from Clinton’s Enemies list than from Rove et al. HillaryCare will be a worse quagmire than Iraq. And we still don’t know what Obama believes, other than what his pastor spouted into his willing ears for 20 years.
Now is the time for Steve Jobs to run against Bill Gates for president. Even with 5% of the vote I bet Karl could scrap something together for us!
Serial murderers and rapists can be described as “productive,”too.
As for Apple Republicans, there are many fine, upstanding examples. But not this one. Defending Karl Rove is akin to a 1930’s German Industrialist defending Joseph Goebbels (“hey, he’s great for business!”). So what if he sent thousands of young men to their deaths for false, spurious, venal, and self-aggrandizing reasons? He was so good at what he did, it makes the destruction lives, countries, and entire governments trifling. Selling your soul (if there ever was one) for political and personal gain is not something to admire or associate with.
Rove has done more harm to the American Republic than anyone else in his lifetime. Anything that makes Rove seem even remotely human is an affront to decent people everywhere. There’s nothing lighthearted about him or his ilk, and there’s no value, not even prurient interest, in humanizing this malignancy. Leave that to Fox News, not Macenstein.
Just the chance of being associated with this gutless, heartless scum tempts me to throw my Mac in the furnace and buy a Dell.
@Marketing Pro and Smitty:
Barry Goldwater was a Conservative. Margaret Thatcher is Conservative. P.J. O’Rourke is Conservative. Look it up in the dictionary.
Rove, Limbaugh and their crowd are Reactionaries; they’re right-wing thugs.
I can call myself a brain surgeon so many times you actually believe me. It still doesn’t make me a Brain Surgeon.
Glad to see a few posts in this thread by persons not afflicted with BDS, as exhibited by 5 and 13.
I get really sick of liberal Mac users assuming that all Mac users are liberals like themselves. The fact of the matter is that most liberals, and most people of any political stripe, use PCs. Another fact is that a minority of all kinds of people, of all different political views, use Macs.
So grow up.
Hi. Nice post. Jez
Wow. Talk about killing the mood.
Can’t we all calm down, I know it’s getting rough… end of the month… new Mac chick to look forward to. Seriously there should be a Mac chick of the week, or day, or hour… stop the anger!
My goodness… all I said was Rove was “…brilliant as far as political strategy goes.” Not exactly a ringing endorsement. And I think it is fair-minded to admit that Joe Goebbels WAS a brilliant propagandist – Doesn’t mean I’m his biggest fan (or even care). The rest of my post was in support of CONSERVATISM, not Republicans or “right-wingers.”
I, as a conservative, believe that government should basically leave us alone, facilitate basic infrastructure (roads, bridges…), enforce basic laws, and protect us against foreign and domestic threats to our livelihood.
I think that’s a pretty reasonable philosophy.
Furthermore, I don’t believe in anybody’s pet projects/causes/programs. They sound great, but in reality, they ultimately take your rights away.
Anyone who really knows Karl at all would know that he has been a Mac guy way before most of you could probably reach the keyboard to spew your rhetoric. To somehow suggest that 1) he is new to the Mac world, and 2) that there is some kind of requirement for being “ok†to use Mac products is short-sighted to say the least. People like imajoebob look at people they don’t really even know and surmise that they can sum up one person’s career and motives in one pithy paragraph. History will be the judge, of both people like Karl and people like imajoebob. Perhaps putting some of that negative energy into a positive direction, telling people what you are for rather than complaining about what you are against, would result in the kind of “change†politicians today find so easy to try and sell us. Calling someone you have never met or known “evil†is so kindergarten it is sad. I’m only ready for the end of the current administration to see what people will find to complain about next!
Sure thing, Mktg Pro. And the residents of Munich had no notion of what was happening in their Dachau suburb. They were just being good Germans looking the other way.
And now you’re trying to claim total absolution from what Rove did because you’re a true-blue “Conservative.” You supported his policies, you followed his lead, because in the end you elected his candidates. You’re responsible for his misdeeds.
And the reason Apple is associated with the “Left” two-fold. First, you have to “Think Differently” to successfully use it. The second, more pernicious reason, is that one of Rove’s crowning achievements was to demonize any progressive thought as threatening, unAmerican, left-wing crazy. Simply using an Apple is an example of a progressive mind; the ability to reject the orthodoxy for enlightened alternatives. Since most progressives are actually middle-of-the-road politically (evil L-word liberals to Rove), Apple users are now viewed as whack-job lefties. That’s a perception you can thank the “Conservative” hero Karl for.
For the record, “progressive” thinking is not innately enlightened nor is it even arguably original. It is also not particularly unorthodox with “left-of-center” thinking being commonplace philosophy at all levels of education, popular entertainment, informational media, and the cultures of our biggest cities. So don’t go acting like you are of superior, fertile intellect because you lean left.
To be fair, it is the candidates that have been elected by “progressives,” who have continually pushed for the increase of government control and supremacy via taxation and regulation leading to our mutual distrust of the federal government. I would argue that lefties and righties are equally wary of federal supremacy, but I think the only ultimate solution is to take money, influence, and power away from the government, and give it back to the people. This is “conservatism” at its core.
I also want to note, I STILL have not said ANYTHING particularly positive about Rove (or Goebbels). In fact, I don’t believe Rove (or Bush or any of the blue-blood, country club Republicans) are even demonstrably “conservative.” They have grown government hugely, they have not strengthened our national security on the southern border, they have increased spending and pet-projects… The list goes on and on, but what makes me sick is reading stupid comments about how Conservatism is killing the country, when it has not even begun to be utilized!
imajoebob, I challenge you to think of ONE area where true, core conservative principals have been put to the test in near purity and have failed to bring about positive change.
I think there’s a conservative inside of you that also wants to watch power leave the seat of the federal government and be given back to you as an individual who is obviously thoughtful and self-sufficient.
And just so we’re clear, I don’t like Karl Rove and I’m not a Republican. I am an independent conservative.
I’m sorry the libs are upset that we conservatives are “getting” the Mac culture…too bad.
Not only am I an old guy, a conservative that appreciates Rove’s intelligence, but I also love all things Mac.
imagejoebob: quit drinking the Kool Aid.
greyconservative: No Kool-Aid left. Anyone who appresiates someone as vile as Rove for any reason obviously drank it all. And can’t legitimately claim to be conservative.
Feel sorry for you i-man.