Karl Rove Goes 'Pot-Kettle-Black' On Obama Administration For Health Care Town Hall

Ahh, Karl Rove! Not too long ago, Rove had command of an astonishing political portfolio. From his perch, he created the many great works, for which he is still celebrated, like the awesome permanent Republican majority and the bases full of U.S. troops that will be in Iraq's cities forever and ever. Look upon his works, and, I don't know, bleat, maybe, with despair!

Sadly, times change. Seasons change. And these days, Rove has mainly been reduced to a Prince of High Dudgeon, with a portfolio of squawky bitchcraft. And the other day, the White House held a town hall meeting in Virginia, soliciting questions from the public on health care. Naturally, this gave Rove the vapors, something awful. Via Think Progress:

ROVE: This White House has carried prepackaged, organized, controlled, scripted events to a new height, and they're getting away with things that in any previous White House, the media would have eviscerated the press secretary and the White House for it.

[WATCH]

Ha ha. Oh, the chortling! Uhm, here's some "previous White House" history:

- In April 2005, Bush's security detail threw three people out of an event in Colorado, citing a bumper sticker on their car that read "No More Blood For Oil." White House spokesman Trent Duffy said that if there's any evidence people might "disrupt the president," they "have the right to exclude those people from those events.

- In early 2005, North Dakota residents were refused entry to a Bush event after their names appeared on a "blacklist" of people banned from the event.

- In March 2005, people seeking tickets to a Social Security event were quizzed about their support of Bush and his Social Security plan ahead of time.

And, remember that time when the Bush administration prescreened soldiers for a Thanksgiving Day photo shoot in Iraq? GOOD TIMES.

Anyway, the Obama White House issued a statement describing the way in which they solicited questions. In their opinion, it was a pretty transparent process.

The President posted a video on YouTube several days ago, saying respond to this video with questions for me on health care, and we got hundreds, and all of those are online. So in terms of the videos that were selected, anyone can look at the range and see which ones we did and didn't select. That's fully transparent. They're all up on YouTube; they were all up yesterday on our website.

Because YouTube doesn't actually have a voting function, our new media staff took videos that were rated highly by other users and selected, from among those, questions that represented the range of things being asked. So a lot of people in the progressive community still want a single-payer system, so the first question was from a single-payer advocate. We took a question from a Republican member of Congress, Mike Burgess, about medical malpractice reform.

In terms of President Obama's health care proposal, questions about single-payer systems and tort reform can logically be deemed "adversarial." So, as far as processes that screen out those sorts of questions, it's not a very good one. But that's just two questions of many. And everything the White House says about how various YouTubes are rated could be worth exploring. In short, there's likely to be ample room to criticize this event. But Karl Rove needs to check himself.

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Comments

[AuntiepoppyCock]

Excuse me Jason, but I think you meant, "Prince of Low Dung."

[neesy08]

Shouldn't Rove be Madoff's roommate

[mergina]

He should certainly be in a cell next to Cheney that's for sure.

[LiberalForever]

Let's hope rove and palin never breed.

[IntellectuallyHonest]

Karl Rove, the Vietnam-era draft dodger that got us into the Iraq War. Happy 4th of July, Karl!

[PerfectSense]

Obama cannot even handle the American press or American pubic.. How can he handle Putin, Kim, Assad and other assorted bad guys?

[Gasparilla]

He's answered far more questions from the press than Bush and given far more interviews. And since you claim he cannot handle the press, then you must feel they are asking him tough questions. But he keeps meeting with them, so that proves you're wrong.

[2bad]

They say it on Fox. You come and repeat it here.

That's why they call people like you sheep!

[nellie]

Even a sheep has more integrity.

[mick7191]

He's doing fine.

[realpolitic]

I would like Obama to be as transparent as possible. But when Rove talks about transparency it is like Jack the Ripper talking about too much petty crime in London.

[flossophy]

Helen doesn't want to be Pravda anymore... as with the rest of the WH press corps.

This will be fun to watch. Like rats fleeing the sinking ship of State.

[MajorKong]

Rove sure seems to be on my TV a lot. Just sayin'

[medic628]

Carl please take your ball and go home. You are not welcome in the playground any more.

[Dave Martin]

Only Rupert Murdock is keeping this bloated, reanimated corpse alive.

[jymfrancais]

Any topic to stir away from the real issue aka 'health care", is all they care about.

[loki]

Bush did it and was a master at it. Ok, really it was Rove, Bush just stood there and looked stupid.
But even with that, I dont think its right for Obama to do the same. Salting the audience of a town hall meeting. This defense of saying someone else did it so its ok is just wrong and does nothing to improve things. To me its like telling the cop that everyone else runs the stop sign, so I shouldnt get a ticket for it. Didnt your mother ever tell you that just because someone else does it, doesnt make it correct? It does make it Right, as in the Right Wing which does anything legal and illegal. , but it doesnt make it correct or proper.

[Koolmorning]

Why is he not in jail? Or when will he get indicted?

[getoffmedz]

A most valid question.

Along this administration's third year is my guess.

Rove will go down.

[Bronxdude]

In an effort to distract from genuine concerns surrounding the enduring political turmoil and tribal anarchy transfixing Afghanistan and Iraq, the GOP would now like to label and ban as terrorist propaganda photos taken at the infamous Abu Ghraib prison depicting Bush/Cheney sanctioned torture. The republican capacity to suspend and simultaneously create reality is impressive, yet hypocritical and scary. In fact, the Bush/Cheney excursion into Iraq to spread capitalism under the guise of democracy continues to serve as a constantly evolving and effective recruitment tool for Islamic extremist. While it’s true that the release of additional Abu Ghraib photos would jeopardize the safety of American troops worldwide, and further contribute to the destabilization of a region deemed strategically necessary, few republican leaders, however, spoke out to condemn the use of torture when it was actually occurring; instead, they backed away and, when pressed to respond, dismissively described the torturous acts as inconsequential, isolated and attributable to a few rogue soldiers acting with no official endorsement, which we now know is untrue. In fact, the decision to use torture originated deep within the murky recesses of the Bush/Cheney Whitehouse. So, at this juncture, republicans are attempting to rewrite their epilogue, abdicate culpability, regain favor, and distance themselves from the atrocities attributable to the Bush/ Cheney years, a period in history when republicans controlled both houses of Congress, succumbed to barbarism, abandoned integrity, and wrongly believed their power to be unassailable and without consequence.

[fusillijerry]

C-. Factually correct but contains too many run-on sentences. Also, please use individual paragraghs for individual points.

[Eykis]

We have a legal client who was in the military and in Iraq and was one of the "staged" questioners of Rumsfeld. I asked and he told me all about how the staging operates and it is done solely to get across the President's message. This person is terrified because the question he asked was not the question he was told to ask and they went ballistic on him. This was all over the internet at the time and that was when the war was still somewhat popular.

My point is, they all do it for their message purposes. While I like Helen Thomas, she is not to be elevated above the rest of the WH press corps, so what is the big deal?

[Eykis]

BTW, the soldier I am speaking about was later permanently injured by an IED because of the lack of armour that he asked Rummy about. Sad, pathetic and this soldier is still suffering the wrath of the Bush Cabal.