Karl Rove wrote a column for the National Review, stating that history will judge George Bush a successful President. The column was entirely laughable, a series of optimistic statements and misconstrued policies.
But typical of Rove, it was also filled with fabulous falsehoods. Here's what he said about the budget.
It was further weakened by terrorist attacks, corporate scandals, natural disasters, and out-of-control spending with discretionary domestic spending increasing 16 percent in the last fiscal year of his predecessor. President Bush took decisive action, cutting taxes and ratcheting down this spending.
In no way did George Bush ratchet down spending. That is an outright lie, one that Rove should be embarrassed to even suggest. According to a report by the Heritage Foundation, no liberal organization:
· Federal spending has grown twice as fast under President Bush as under President Clinton.
Got that? Rove's idea of "ratcheting down this spending" is to spend it twice as fast. It's hard to believe he could write this without laughing.
Over the past seven years, this country has grown accustomed to the blatant lies of the Bush Administration. And it comes as no surprise that the National Review would publish this rubbish. But ultimately, we must remain vigilant. Because history has yet to be written, and if we allow the Karl Rove's of the world to repeat this lie enough, it might eventually be considered true.
Yesterday morning, I watched David Gregory's interview on Meet The Press with Bush's brain, Karl Rove.
As difficult as it was for some to sit through, it wasn't for me.
For the last 6 1/2 years it has been a rarity that I've heard a word uttered from Rove.
The most I've heard came from the teary eyed exchange between him and W at a recent press conference where Rove announced his plan to depart his beloved President.
I reluctantly admit - Sunday morning I was fascinated.
As I listened and hung on every word it all made so much sense to me - the myth is true, W is Karl Rove's creation.
I always knew that W is incapable of thinking for himself. I mean come on - he can barely complete a coherent sentence. But I was always unsure of who exactly makes W tick. After hearing Rove speak this morning I'm convinced he is the one.
Rove dominated the interview with his views on Iraq, the Republican party, the past four elections , and the CIA leak scandal. He even gave us a brief display of his testiness when Gregory asked him questions he didn't like.
And for those who didn't know just how long Rove has been in the game, we even got look at a skinny & long-haired Rove from 1972 talking politics with Dan Rather.
For me the highlight of the interview occurred when Rove compared W's failures in Iraq to casualties we sustained in WW2 when FDR made the decision to battle the Nazis in North Africa and to fight on the shores of Italy. I realized then and there that Rove has probably been giving W his talking points all along. Plus the fact that Rove is so smart he's stupid. Not to mention the total insult to the memory of FDR by comparing him to W.
Luckily for us Rove will leave the White House at the end of the month. However, it would be very naive to think he is out of the picture. For W, Rove will most likely just be a phone call away, readily available to give more bad advice on how W can continue to incompetently run the country.
I can't give all the credit to Rove. There have been so many moving parts in this engine. Cheney, Condi, Rummy, Libby, Card, Wolfowitz, and my apologies to any other war mongering chickenhawks I left out.
I'm hoping that Rove's departure is the beginning of a new era. I think we are long overdue for the neoconservative ideology in our government to join the dinosaurs in extinction.
Karl Rove made the rounds of the Sunday shows. Basically the same old spin and blatant lies from Bush's brain. More interesting was McCain's analysis of Rove, which he made on "Face the Nation":
Senator John McCain of Arizona, a Republican presidential candidate who followed Mr. Rove on “Face the Nation,” said that history would decide whether Mr. Rove had been “good or bad for American politics,” and that the assessment would depend largely on the outcome of the Iraq war.
Get that? The judgment of Rove's role in politics depends on Iraq. That's because Rove was key to Bush's Iraq strategy. And, that's because for Bush, Iraq has been all about politics and public relations. McCain confirmed it today -- and he should know. The Senator from Arizona fully supports the Bush/Rove "stay the course" in Iraq strategy.
Just last month, Rove was in high level meetings discussing the next political move. Rove is the one that kept telling the media that Bush was going to give another speech on Iraq that would change everything. He used that one a couple times -- and the media dutifully fell for it every time -- as Rove knew they would.
Actually, despite what McCain said, we don't have to wait for history to judge. Iraq is a failure. Bush's presidency is a failure. And, Karl Rove is the political mastermind behind both abysmal failures. A lot of people died because of Rove's political strategy. That's sick and disgusting.
The Washington Posts Peter Baker reports that the 2008 campaign emulating Karl Rove's strategy is - Hillary Clinton's campaign.
As he packs his desk just 15 steps from the Oval Office, Karl Rove says he will not join any 2008 presidential campaign. That's just as well because none of the Republican candidates presumably could afford the association even if they wanted his strategic smarts. Besides, none of them is running the campaign quite the way he would. The candidate who seems to be adopting his style and methods the most so far? Hillary Rodham Clinton.
At least that's what Nicolle Wallace thinks. The former Bush White House communications director, who worked closely with Rove, said that Clinton "has almost operationalized the whole idea of turning your weakness into strength, message discipline that is almost pathological -- she does not get off message for any reason -- and never skipping an opportunity to exploit her opponent's weaknesses."
Clinton's campaign manager, Patti Solis Doyle, seems to agree with that assessment, having effectively vowed to run her operation much as Rove did his two successful national campaigns. "She expresses admiration for the way George W. Bush's campaign team controlled its message, and, given her druthers, would run this race no differently," Michelle Cottle writes this month in New York magazine. " 'We are a very disciplined group, and I am very proud of it,' she says with a defiant edge."
Well, far be it from me to give the Clinton campaign advice, but they might want to ixnay the Karl OvRe, if you know what I mean. Let's face it, saying your emulating Karl Rove's strategy in the Democratic primary is like saying you're getting parenting tips from Brittney and K-Fed. It's a bad idea, it seems amateurish and off-message. In short, it's something that Rove would never do.
In an interview published this morning in The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Rove said, “I just think it’s time,” adding, “There’s always something that can keep you here, and as much as I’d like to be here, I’ve got to do this for the sake of my family.”
Mr. Rove said he had first considered leaving a year ago but stayed after his party lost the crucial midterm elections last fall, putting Congress in Democratic hands, and Mr. Bush’s problems mounted in Iraq and in his pursuit of a new immigration policy.
"Problems mounted in Iraq" is an understatement -- A HUGE understatement. Iraq's a disaster. Don't forget that Rove was overseeing Iraq policy, because for Bush, Iraq is and has been primarily a political issue. Last month, as we reported, Rove was working on the next steps in the Iraq strategy with Bush:
Iraq has always been first and foremost a political issue for the Bush White House. Same for national security. Politics trumps policy every time. In today's NY Times [July 9, 2007], we see one more time that Karl Rove is playing a key role in setting the Bush administration's Iraq policy. Bush doesn't listen to the military. He listens to Karl Rove. So, one more time, we see that politics matters more than anything:
Last week, Mr. Bush’s national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, called in from a brief vacation to join intense discussions in sessions that included Karl Rove, Mr. Bush’s longtime strategist, and Joshua B. Bolten, the White House chief of staff.
How many times did the White House press corps fall for Rove's tactics on Iraq. How many times did the media breathlessly report that Bush was going to give a SPEECH about Iraq? Have to give Rove credit for one thing: he knew the press corps were a bunch of patsies and he played them over and over and over.
The biggest rat of all is jumping off the sinking Bush ship. Karl Rove will leave George Bush's side at the end of August. He's quitting:
Karl Rove, President Bush's close friend and chief political strategist, plans to leave the White House at the end of August, joining a lengthening line of senior officials heading for the exits in the final 1 1/2 years of the administration.
A longtime member of Bush's inner circle, Rove was nicknamed "the architect" by the president for designing the strategy that twice won him the White House.
Yep. And, Rove has also helped make Bush one of the worst and least popular Presidents ever.
Did anyone think he'd actually show, given the continual corruption, lies and obfuscation coming out of this White House? (Raw Story):
White House senior adviser Karl Rove has rebuked a Senate Judiciary Committee subpoena and will not appear Thursday to testify about his role in the firing of nine US Attorneys, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) said late Wednesday.
...The House Judiciary Committee initiated criminal contempt of Congress charges against former White House counsel Harriet Miers and Chief of Staff Joshua Bolton last month after they refused to comply with subpoenas demanding their testimony.
It remains unclear whether Rove will face similar charges. A Judiciary Committee spokeswoman told RAW STORY Wednesday night that if Rove followed through in refusing to testify, the committee could decide to issue criminal charges later. The aide said no decisions had been made yet.
And what would be the reason NOT to bring the hammer down on Turdblossom?
With potential perjury accusations hanging over him, embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales sent a letter to Senate leaders Wednesday acknowledging he "may have created confusion" in his previous testimony.
..."I recognize that the use of the term 'Terrorist Surveillance Program' and my shorthand reference to the 'program' publicly 'described by the President' may have created confusion, particularly for those who are knowledgeable about the NSA activities authorized in the presidential order described by the DNI [director of national intelligence], and who may be accustomed to thinking of them or referring to them together as a single NSA 'program,' " Gonzales wrote.
...Attorney General Alberto Gonzales writes of his concern with "suggestions that my testimony was misleading." But he said he did not mean to mislead senators and was "determined to address any such impression."
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, wasn't buying it.
"The attorney general's legalistic explanation of his misleading testimony under oath before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week is not what one should expect from the top law enforcement officer of the United States," Leahy said.
Finally, the Senate is getting to the key player in the U.S. Attorneys scandal: Karl Rove.
Okay, when Rove doesn't respond to the subpoena -- and he won't, play hard ball: cut his salary from the budget, take away his security clearance, make him pay. The guiding principle for Senate Democrats should be: what would Rove do?:
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) Thursday issued a subpoena for top White House adviser Karl Rove to compel him to testify about the firing of several U.S. attorneys.
“The evidence shows that senior White House political operatives were focused on the political impact of federal prosecutions and whether federal prosecutors were doing enough to bring partisan voter fraud and corruption cases,” Leahy said. “It is obvious that the reasons given for the firings of these prosecutors were contrived as part of a cover-up and that the stonewalling by the White House is part and parcel of that same effort.”
Iraq has always been first and foremost a political issue for the Bush White House. Same for national security. Politics trumps policy every time. In today's NY Times, we see one more time that Karl Rove is playing a key role in setting the Bush administration's Iraq policy. Bush doesn't listen to the military. He listens to Karl Rove. So, one more time, we see that politics matters more than anything:
Last week, Mr. Bush’s national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, called in from a brief vacation to join intense discussions in sessions that included Karl Rove, Mr. Bush’s longtime strategist, and Joshua B. Bolten, the White House chief of staff.
Officials describe the meetings as more of a running discussion than an argument. They say that no one is clinging to a stay-the-course position but that instead aides are trying to game out what might happen if the president becomes more specific about the start and the shape of what the White House is calling a “post-surge redeployment.”
The views of many of the participants in that discussion were unclear, and the officials interviewed could not provide any insight into what Vice President Dick Cheney had been telling President Bush.
They described Mr. Hadley as deeply concerned that the loss of Republicans could accelerate this week, a fear shared by Mr. Rove. But they also said that Mr. Rove had warned that if Mr. Bush went too far in announcing a redeployment, the result could include a further cascade of defections — and the passage of legislation that would force a withdrawal by a specific date, a step Mr. Bush has always said he would oppose.
To the Bush team, the politics and appearances are more important than anything. Now, this strategy has gotten Bush down to a 26% approval rating and has the U.S. trapped in the middle of a civil war. But, Bush and Rove are never wrong. Ever.
As David Iglesias,, the fired U.S. Attorney from New Mexico, said, "All roads lead to Rove." The NY Times is right -- it's time to hear from Karl -- under oath, with a transcript:
Congress has now heard from everyone in the Justice Department who appears to have played a significant role in the firings of the prosecutors. They have all insisted that the actual decisions about whom to fire came from somewhere else. It is increasingly clear that the somewhere else was the White House. If Congress is going to get to the bottom of the scandal, it has to get the testimony of Mr. Rove, his aides Scott Jennings and Sara Taylor, Ms. Miers and her deputy, William Kelley.
The White House has offered to make them available only if they do not take an oath and there is no transcript. Those conditions are a formula for condoning perjury, and they are unacceptable. As for documents, the White House has released piles of useless e-mail messages. But it has reported that key e-mails to and from Mr. Rove were inexplicably destroyed. At the same time, it has argued that e-mails of Mr. Rove’s that were kept on a Republican Party computer system, which may contain critical information, should not be released.
This noncooperation has gone on long enough. Mr. Leahy should deliver the subpoenas for the five White House officials and make clear that if the administration resists, Congress will use all available means to get the information it needs.
No wonder the Bush administration is fighting so hard to keep Karl Rove from testifying under oath and on the record about the U.S. Attorney firings. There's growing evidence that Rove was the force that created the scandal. Big surprise, huh?
Rove knew his candidates couldn't win on the issues. He was doing everything he could to throw the elections with the bogus claim of voter fraud. Karl has to testify now -- under oath -- on the record:
Rove, in particular, was preoccupied with pressing Gonzales and his aides about alleged voting problems in a handful of battleground states, according to testimony and documents.
Last October, just weeks before the midterm elections, Rove's office sent a 26-page packet to Gonzales's office containing precinct-level voting data about Milwaukee. A Justice aide told congressional investigators that he quickly put the package aside, concerned that taking action would violate strict rules against investigations shortly before elections, according to statements disclosed this week.
That aide, senior counselor Matthew Friedrich, turned over notes to Congress that detailed a telephone conversation about voter fraud with another Justice official, Benton Campbell, chief of staff for the Criminal Division. Friedrich had asked Campbell for his assessment of Rove's complaints about problems in New Mexico, Milwaukee and Philadelphia, according to a congressional aide familiar with Friedrich's remarks.
The notes show that Campbell also identified Nevada as a problem district. Daniel G. Bogden of Las Vegas was among the nine U.S. attorneys known to have been removed from their jobs last year.
Rick Hasen, a professor at Loyola Law School who runs an election law blog, said that "there's no question that Karl Rove and other political operatives" urged Justice officials to apply pressure on U.S. attorneys to pursue voter-fraud allegations in parts of the country that were critical to the GOP.
White House political adviser Karl Rove, furious that Republican moderates had divulged a confrontational meeting they had on Tuesday with Bush on the war, started yesterday with an angry conversation with the meeting's organizer, Rep. Mark Steven Kirk (R-Ill.), according to several GOP lawmakers. Dan Meyer, the White House's chief lobbyist, called the other participants to express the administration's unhappiness.
Cheney's was broadcast on the GOP channel and picked up by the NY Times:
Some White House officials privately expressed displeasure Thursday that the concerns the Republican moderates raised with the president became public. Vice President Dick Cheney did not mince words in an interview with the Fox News Channel. “We didn’t get elected to be popular,” Mr. Cheney said. “We didn’t get elected to worry just about the fate of the Republican Party.”
The Bush administration has withheld a series of e-mails from Congress showing that senior White House and Justice Department officials worked together to conceal the role of Karl Rove in installing Timothy Griffin, a protégé of Rove's, as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas.
The withheld records show that D. Kyle Sampson, who was then-chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, consulted with White House officials in drafting two letters to Congress that appear to have misrepresented the circumstances of Griffin's appointment as U.S. attorney and of Rove's role in supporting Griffin.
Nice work, Mr. Iglesias. Rove really picked a fight with the wrong U.S. Attorney/Navy Reserve Captain. From Think Progress:
Tonight on MSNBC, fired U.S. Attorney David Iglesias revealed key new details about the Office of Special Counsel’s (OSC) probe into Karl Rove and other White House officials reported today by the Los Angeles Times.
Iglesias said that on April 3, he filed a Hatch Act complaint with the OSC, charging that Karl Rove and others may have violated the law by firing him over his failure to initiate partisan-motivated prosecutions. Iglesias said he subsequently spoke with OSC chief Scott Bloch, who made clear that he was planning to launch an investigation. Despite suggestions that the White House may have initiated the OSC investigation to obstruct parallel congressional probes, Iglesias expressed confidence in Bloch.
For some people -- although not many in the Bush administration, the rule of law actually matters.
The blogs are buzzing today about a major revelation from the LA Times. Karl Rove's political operation is facing what appears to be a serious internal investigation:
Most of the time, an obscure federal investigative unit known as the Office of Special Counsel confines itself to monitoring the activities of relatively low-level government employees, stepping in with reprimands and other routine administrative actions for such offenses as discriminating against military personnel or engaging in prohibited political activities.
But the Office of Special Counsel is preparing to jump into one of the most sensitive and potentially explosive issues in Washington, launching a broad investigation into key elements of the White House political operations that for more than six years have been headed by chief strategist Karl Rove.
The new investigation, which will examine the firing of at least one U.S. attorney, missing White House e-mails, and White House efforts to keep presidential appointees attuned to Republican political priorities, could create a substantial new problem for the Bush White House.
First, the inquiry comes from inside the administration, not from Democrats in Congress. Second, unlike the splintered inquiries being pressed on Capitol Hill, it is expected to be a unified investigation covering many facets of the political operation in which Rove played a leading part.
"We will take the evidence where it leads us," Scott J. Bloch, head of the Office of Special Counsel and a presidential appointee, said in an interview Monday. "We will not leave any stone unturned."
The Washington DC-based media pays enormous deference to Karl Rove. Still. Despite all the lies. Last night on the Daily Show, Jon Stewart interviewed Matt Cooper on this very subject. The video is on the Daily Show's website. Fascinating what the press has let Rove get away with. Karl plays the media for patsies -- and they are. It'll be interesting to see if this latest investigation gets any traction beyond the LA Times and the blogosphere.
And yes Karl, you most certainly do work for the American people and not just a hand full of campaign contributors. (H/T to TPM.)
In his attempt to dismiss us, Mr. Rove turned to head toward his table, but as soon as he did so, Sheryl reached out to touch his arm. Karl swung around and spat, "Don't touch me." How hardened and removed from reality must a person be to refuse to be touched by Sheryl Crow? Unphased, Sheryl abruptly responded, "You can't speak to us like that, you work for us." Karl then quipped, "I don't work for you, I work for the American people." To which Sheryl promptly reminded him, "We are the American people."
Check this out. She didn't even try to hide it. From ABC News:
The Office of Special Counsel confirmed to ABC News it has launched an investigation into General Services Administration chief Lurita Doan, probing concerns she may have violated a ban against conducting partisan political activity at government expense by participating in a meeting featuring a presentation by a White House political aide on GOP election strategy.
Doan's agency spends over $56 billion a year on paper clips, office space, car fleets and other necessities for federal agencies.
In January, Doan attended a meeting at which senior White House political aide W. Scott Jennings briefed Doan, a White House appointee, and other officials at a GSA facility on Republican plans to win seats in Congress.
After the presentation, according to some witnesses contacted by congressional investigators, Doan encouraged other attendees to find ways GSA could help "our candidates" in the 2008 election. Doan has told Congress she doesn't recall making the statement, and other witnesses interviewed by congressional investigators are said to have backed her up....
But Doan may not have been the only top official to host a White House political official at her agency. The White House political office has been giving presentations similar to the one at GSA since at least 2002, briefing officials throughout the government on Republican campaign information, according to a recent book by two Los Angeles Times reporters.
"[White House political adviser Karl] Rove and [former Bush campaign chief and one-time Republican National Committee head Ken] Mehlman ventured to nearly every cabinet agency to share key polling data" leading up to the 2002 midterm elections, wrote Tom Hamburger and Peter Wallsten in their book, "One Party Country," "and to deliver a reminder of White House priorities, including the need for the president's allies to win in the next election."
While previous administrations had sent officials to cabinet agencies, the duo wrote, "Such intense regular communication from the political office had never occurred before."
