Card: Rove's Claim That Congress Pushed Bush To War Is Wrong

Karl Rove told Charlie Rose during a recent interview that Congress had pushed President Bush to go into Iraq prematurely. According to Rove, the White House had been opposed to holding the war vote close to the 2002 elections because "we thought it made it too political."

This morning, former White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card went on MSNBC's Morning Joe and laughed off Rove's claims. Read part of the transcript from Think Progress:

SCARBOROUGH: We have to start with something that we all are talking about a couple of days ago where Karl Rove went on Charlie Rose and he blamed the Democrats for pushing him and the president into war. Is that how it worked?

CARD: No, that's not the way it worked.

Card went on to explain that sometimes Rove's "mouth gets ahead of his brain":

SCARBOROUGH: Is that just Karl spinning beyond the White House? ...

CARD: Well, Karl is very smart. He's -- sometimes his brain gets ahead of his mouth. And sometimes his mouth gets ahead of his brain.

Watch the video from MSNBC here:

Go to HuffPost's Rove Watch to read more.

Comments

[oogabooga]

By now, almost everybody knows that the PNAC warlovers pitched the Iraq takeover to Bush I and to Clinton, and both rejected it. Bush II bought into it, hook, line and sinker. And it's been his downfall in the eyes of the public, although he's a hero among those who have made so much money from this tragic misadventure.

[wadenelson1]

boy, the trolls are out in force.

deflection, distraction, lies, off topic posts.

Should be a GREAT day for people with a brain.

[FiddleDD2]

Don't you just love it how the trolls are all a twitter over the Glorious Surge being a "success" because refugees are returning home? Ignore that they are being paid to return, ignore that their visas are running out in other countries. Why is it just now that the trolls seem to have the word "refugee" in their vocabularies? Wasn't there for 4 years and they certainly didn't give a damn about what happened to those displaced from a war we brought to them. Iraqi refugees..­..props in this war just like our soldiers to prop up the delusions of a Chimp and his enablers.

Forget all the quotes from the enablers about needing another 6 months for the Iraqi government to get their act together..­.forget that was the REASON for the surge. Forget how the Chimp has started lowering the bar for the Iraqi gov't YET AGAIN.

[JustBiteMe]

The fact that we are seeing some progress in Iraq due to the surge is proof positive that the Bush / Rumsfeld war strategy of fewer troops was a complete disaster!

[Clarabell]

Rove, THE MASTER OF DIRTY TRICKS, thinks that because he has run the executive branch, owned the legislative and judiciary branches, AND THE MEDIA for such a long time that he can get away with anything, and the stupid Americans will continue to buy into it. Well, maybe he's right --AND just who will write those history books?

[LeaderofMen]

Disaster Capitalism is working, not the surge. This administration has made a business out of destroying things or letting things be destroyed, then sending in huge multinationals to 'clean up'.

The surge might be working to quell some suicide bombers. No doubt - since this is what should have happened in the first place. But how long can the surge be maintained? Indefinitely? Until every Iraqi is dead? Until the entire infrastructure will need Halliburton or Bechtel 24/7/365 - as taxpayer's expense - to fix things?

Sorry Murtha. Look at the BIG PICTURE. Not the little tactical thing that Bush did.

This is a generational problem now. All because Bush is a total failure.

[robodweeb]

"A successful strategy for Iraq goes beyond military operations.
...
So America will hold the Iraqi government to the benchmarks it has announced.­"

G.W. Bush January 2007

[ForeverBlunt]

Karlotta really should stop taking the mind-alerting drugs he is obviously abusing. As the blowhards in the inept administration try, repeatedly, to rewrite history they merely show themselves to be the desperate traitors they are. Does Karlotta not realize that the written RECORD shows he is lying? Forget for the moment that while these idiots were rushing into a war that was widely predicted to be exactly as we see it now, and remember the daily newscasts that showed DuMbya and the rest of his cabal lying to the Congress. Personally I agree that Congress blew it, in a major way, but one does have to consider that these lies were manufactured at a time when our nation was still reeling from the horror of 911, and as such too many felt they owed it to the dictator, I mean presDUHdent, to give him free reign. Now our country, actually, THE country- it is no longer ours, is in the bind we now face. I don't have children and for that I forever thankful, for this dictator, DuMbya has sold them into indentured servitude. Today's youth will need to be rock stars, overpaid athletes, or win the lottery in order to have a decent standard of living. The rest of "Average" America will live lives that are lacking in security. That security was thrown away- in 2000. Yes, it was thrown away by those idiots that voted for DuMbya. I don't care what party one identifies themselves as being a member of, but it makes no sense to vote for anyone with an IQ of less than 70. Yet, that's what those idiots did, and look where we now stand.

[IntelligentDesign]

Karl Rove is a dead ringer for the evil boy genius in The Incredibles, don't you think?

[ConcernAmerican]

Of course the surge is working, we've increase our troops in Iraq by 30,000 if I'm not mistaken. BUT, there's a problem, the Sunnis and Shiites can't work together. The sunnis knew agents of Iran are in their government now and embedded in Iraqi's military. Iranians are Shiites. I've watched CNN last night,the US government put around 40,000 Iraqis used to be part of the insurgents in the payroll, they now guard their own city, town and villages. USA will maintain at least 50,000 US troops for our permanent base in Iraq to keep the peace between the Shiites and Sunnis not counting the Kurds.

[Bobby]

Have you ever seen Rove, Dumbya or Cheney for that matter, EVER tell the truth. They lied about the reasons for the war in Iraq. They lied about illegal wiretapping. They lied about torture. They lied about Katrina. They lied about outing Valerie Plame. None of them will ever testify under oath. Remember the 9/11 testimony, where Dumbya and Cheney had to testify together? And they refused to testify under oath. Rove is from the Lee Atwater school of ethics. He has NONE. He is programmed to lie. He is soulless. He is shameless. He also deserves a prison cell as opposed to going on talk shows, writing books and doing the lecture circuit. Rove has committed treason, along with his former boss Dumbya and Chickenshit Cheney.

[ConstanceBlake]

SCARBOROUGH: Is that just Karl spinning beyond the White House? ...

Spinning?

In my day, we called it what it was.

Lying.

[Jane22]

Isn't it just so noble for Andy and Scott to attempt this sudden truth-telling? Where were you both as all these lies were foisted on the world? Is your part in the blood-letting and financial robbery finally nagging at your conscience? Could it be that you finally see, from the distance of escape, just what death and the plunder of average American citizens looks like? Maybe now you all can just go to church and ask Jesus to intercede for you in Heaven! Maybe taking responsibility in the court of public opinion can ease your collusion? Perhaps, your followers, the duped, will get their reward in heaven, since you all have sold your souls to get paid in the present! Pity the liars. They know of what they do and hateth their victims. Proverbs 26:28. Get thee behind us! Peace, J22

[cryingeagle]

Rove and a secret military study has recently concluded that the American people have a belief system deeply rooted in the game "Simon Says".

Lets play "Bush Says"

Bush says your anti-American of you.....

[RushLimbaughsPutz]

Who wants to come to my gala "Surge" & Iraq Victory celebration? You are all invited, but please bring lot of dope, and viagra, and vaseline just in case we run out. Isn't it cool how we can make a war dissappear by just denying that it happened? We are at 2006-era levels of violence, and as we all know 2006 was a time of peace and prosperity for all Iraqis. All it took was lots of cash, a few hundred extra deaths, making friends with our former enemies, and under-reporting the violence. That is why America is an exceptional country! When we decide to spin a tragedy no one else even comes close. See you in Church! Rush L