Karl Rove's Shameless, Remorseless, Soulless Attempt to Rewrite History
I went on Countdown last night to talk about what Keith Olbermann called Karl Rove's "attack on history."
During an interview with Charlie Rose, the erstwhile Boy Genius pulled out his bucket of whitewash and audaciously claimed that "one of the untold stories" about the war in Iraq is that the Bush administration had been "opposed' to Congress holding the vote authorizing the president to use military force in Iraq just a few weeks prior to the 2002 elections because "we thought it made it too political."
Too political? For Karl Rove? That's like saying something was too bloody for Count Dracula.
He went on to paint a picture of a White House pushed into war, and laid the blame for much of what has happened since on a Congress that had "made things move too fast." If not for Congress, you see, there would have been more time for weapons inspections, and to build a broader coalition.
It was a satiric tour de force worthy of Jonathan Swift or Stephen Colbert -- but Rove wasn't joking. He actually expected us to buy his load of b.s. Watching Rove, two things were perfectly clear: his disdain for the truth and his contempt for the American people know no bounds.
Rove's appearance was the work of a shameless, remorseless, soulless political animal taking the first steps on what will no doubt be a high profile and lucrative march toward historical revisionism. He knows that he stands shoulder-to-shoulder with the fanatics responsible for the worst foreign policy disaster in American history -- not exactly the best thing to put on your post-government resume -- so he is hell-bent on replacing reality with the latest incarnation of The Big Lie.
A student of history, Rove is obviously also up on his Orwell: "Who controls the past, controls the future."
Unfortunately for Rove, this isn't 1984; we now live in the Age of Google, and YouTube, and Lexis-Nexis searches. So the refutation of his lies is just a click away.
The evidence that it was President Bush and Vice President Cheney -- and not Congress -- who were hungry for war is overwhelming. For starters, we have Bush's own words before the vote, when he explicitly told Congress that "it's in our national interest" to get the vote "done as quickly as possible." And the insistence of then-Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld that "delaying a vote in Congress would send the wrong message." And the words of then-Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle who says that when he asked Bush in September 2002 why there was such a rush for a vote on Iraq the president "looked at Cheney and he looked at me, and there was a half-smile on his face. And he said: 'We just have to do this now.'"
And there is the insider evidence provided by Richard Clarke, who wrote that within hours of the 9/11 attacks, this administration had its heart set on heading into Iraq. And from Paul O'Neill, who made it clear that invading Iraq had been Bush's goal before he had even learned where the Oval Office supply closet was.
Even now, with his approval ratings scraping the bottom of the historical barrel, Bush still dominates the Congressional agenda on the war. And Rove wants us to buy that back in the heady days of 2002, when the president was still riding a wave of support forged by 9/11, his desire for caution and reasoned action were overridden by a war hungry Congress? "We don't determine when the Congress votes on things," Rove told Rose. "The Congress does." I guess he and Bush landed on the whole "I'm the Decider" thing later (maybe after they orchestrated that triumphal landing on the Abraham Lincoln).
The truth is that the zealots in the White House were not about to allow their desires to invade Iraq -- which had been laid out years earlier by the Project for a New American Century -- be quashed by anything as piddling as the facts or the evidence or reasoned debate or Congress. Especially a Congress populated with Democratic leaders so rattled and timid that to call them spineless would be an insult to invertebrates everywhere.
Indeed, it was the perfect political environment for an administration intent on shoving a war down the throats of Congress and the American people.
Let's remember, this was the time when the administration had pulled together the White House Study Group (which included Rove himself) with the express mission of marketing the war. These people weren't in the mood to wait, they were in the mood to sell, sell, sell. The Downing Street Memo showed that by July of 2002 they were already fixing the intel to sell the war. By August 2002 the White House was already using Judy Miller and the New York Times as prime advertising space. And by September 2002, Condi Rice was already warning of smoking guns turning out to be mushroom clouds, and Cheney was using aluminum tubes to make the case that Saddam was "actively and aggressively seeking to acquire nuclear weapons."
So the record is irrefutable: the drumbeat of war coming from the White House couldn't have been louder. And no amount of 5-years-down the road spinning by Karl Rove is going to change that truth.
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Rove is not aiming the statement at us, he is aiming it at the stupid people he tricked into voting for bush. For the 08 election, he will now trick them into believing that the dems started this war.
He is ONLY interested in manipulating the stupid component of the swing voters, no one else.
Rove's book surely is being sold as fiction? Right!
Hilarious!
Rove has spun himself beyond the 'man we love to hate' to a pathetic tragic buffoon.
Without power, a perpetual liar has nothing to offer.
No one believes him.
Who cares what he says next?
Rove doesn't mind being called remorseless and shameless. He is proud of that. Call him "goofy" and "ridiculous". Mockery hurts.
The point of Karl Rove's lying isn't to convince us that Bush didn't want to go to war. That would be futile. The point of this tactic is to move the agenda, and he is already having some success at that.
When he repeated his bogus claim, the Washington Post (Sat Dec 1st, Page A06) covered the story again, taking his claim no more seriously than before, but also finding itself needing more to say. Since there was nothing new to say about Rove's blatantly obvious lie, they turned instead to adjacent topics, like evaluating the honesty of others in Washington.
Now a story generated by a lying Republican has the press looking at the honesty of Democrats. Moreover, since Karl Rove cannot sink lower in terms of public opinion, he has nothing to lose here. Look at the language they used:
"The fresh clash over the five-year-old vote made plain how political leaders on all sides are trying to shape the history of that moment."
The MSM is so allergic to the feeling of a one-side story, that when presented with one, they manufacture another side. By presenting the press with a one-sided story about his own bad behavior, Mr. Rove is actually moving them in the opposite direction. Genius, but evil.
gwb doesnt care what we think
because he knows the neozioncon spinners, like bechloss
will 'enshrine' him much like they did with truman
who was another inept idiot
The whole she-bang of the bush's administration consists of one scum bag after another as far as the eye can see; and if the person were not a scum bag before taking employment with the prince of darkness, that individual became an instant convert to perversion, fraud, and degeneracy (as Charley would say in "The Death of a Salesman," "it comes with the territory.").
Rove trying to rewrite history like this is indeed shameless, remorseless, soulless -- and stupid.
with all the evidence -- in print and video -- stacked against him -- with people within the administration -- Andrew Card, et al -- saying he's nuts -- let this incident finally prove to everyone that Rove is no "boy genius" or anything positive.
he is an idiot.
Why not just name it and claim it - Rove is a liar!
Just not much new to that.
Forget the war on terror. We are now more than ever in need of a war on liars.
This is preciesly why it was outrageous for Newsweek to hire Rove as a commentator to "balance" Markos Moulitsas. Rove is a professional liar, a habit he's not likely to abandon just because his new title is "journalist."
Rove knows well that journalists today are often too lazy and cowardly to write the truth, and that they prefer "he said this, but others say that" accounts to actual fact-checking. Stenographers, Glenn Greenwald calls them.
He's preparing the ground. Here's betting that ten months from now, the Joe Kleins of this world (and they are many, and they dominate the MSM) will be giving equal weight to both accounts: "Some say the Bush Administration rushed into this war. Others, however, point to the Democrats in Congress."
That's what happened with global warming (0,01% of scientists getting equal space as the other 99,99%) and we know how that confused and spoiled matters.
By the way I immediately cancelled my subscription to Newsweek after Rove's hire.
Maybe something's up. The Ron Paul robophone call in New Hampshire this week says that Paul is he only republican to have opposed the war clinton got us in to. The claim is mentioned in passing and goes by quickly.
P
I am going to inject a new aspect maybe of this
discussion. Air force stealth bombers are training for missions over N. Korea. Why? Is
N. Korea not complying with getting rid of the ability to have nuclear weapons. These missions
started in earnest in October.
Despite slipping below the double digits in Iowa
Biden is the only one to say he will push for
impeachment if Bush attacks Iran.
Rove comes back on the scene, attacking and
diverting attention. Bush suddenly pushes for
cooperation between Israel and Palestine. Bush
pushes for long term relationship in Iraq, but
the White House is now denying it.
Something stinks.
Never underestimate Karl Rove. His agenda is more complex than mere "whitewash" of the past. His "raison d'etre" is to manipulate political outcomes and elections. His "blame-game" has a more nefarious purpose than rewriting "legacy".
Rove's statements are the equivalent of asking, "Are you still beating your wife?". Rove knows that any challenge to his "untold story" is an admission of stupidity, timidity and malfeasance, whereas saying nothing may verify Rove's tale. Two candidates with immunity to this dilemma are Dennis Kusinich and Ron Paul who opposed War authority. Paul proposed that Congress debate and vote on Declaration of War. However Congress wasn't interested in following the mandate of the Constitution(ArticleIIIsec.8). Sen.John McCain avoids this dilemma by doggedly refusing to admit invasion was wrong and stands by his vote, however pathetically illogical.
Rove cleverly continues to influence the 2008 Presidential Election in a variety of ways. Democratic candidates (ie.Hillary) are in a no-win situation if they respond to Rove's claims. And if other Dems, including Obama, make too much of the 2002 capitulation, it could mean disaster for Dems in the General Election. Kucinich valiantly pursues Impeachment but is marginalized as a candidate with nothing to lose. However, Democrats cannot risk supporting impeachment or discussing the 2002Congress, without casting the wider net of malfeasance on their Democratic comrades. Six Republican candidates are complicit with Rove's neocon agenda. Sadly, Senator McCain has been duped into attacking fellow Republican Ron Paul who, if elected, would represent the only real threat to Rove's on-going agenda for American empire.
Identifying Karl Rove as "shameless, remorseless and soulless", means nothing to someone with no soul, shame or remorse. Rove has no need to rewrite the past. He has accomplished everything he desired, and more. His goal continues to be manipulating and shaping the 2008 Election and to see his neocon agenda march into the future. Therefore, it is illogical and naive to conclude that this shameless act is anything more than the next chapter in the ongoing tale of a master of Machiavellan manipulation.
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Posted November 28, 2007 | 12:50 PM (EST)