Rove: "Congress Pushed Bush to War in Iraq Prematurely"

You are not going to believe this, well, actually you will... According to Karl Rove (on Charlie Rose), the Bush Administration did not want Congress to vote on the Iraq War resolution in the fall of 2002, because they thought it should not be done within the context of an election. Rove, you see, did not think the war vote should be "political".

Moreover, according to Rove, that "premature vote" led to many of the problems that cropped up in the Iraq War. Had Congress not pushed, he says, Bush could have spent more time assembling a coalition, and provided more time to the inspectors.

If you are like me, you have stopped reading/listening, and are rushing to get your anti-emetic.

It is worth remembering that the Senate in the fall of 2002 was controlled, barely, by Democrats. Get it? George Bush, we are being told, wanted to delay, wanted to hold back, wanted to take the time to build a coalition and let the inspectors finish their job, but that damn Congress just pushed him into it. George Bush, you see, is a careful, prudent, leader, deeply concerned about the consequences of premature.

Get it? If Biden, Clinton, Dodd or Edwards is part of the Democratic ticket, the Republicans will run a campaign charging the Senate Democrats with rushing to judgment, of pushing the poor President to premature...(well, you fill in the blank)....

Not that Iraq is that big of an issue. Rove claims that, if Iraq had been a big issue, that Joe Lieberman, who was pro-war, could not have won in Connecticut, defeating receiving more Democratic, Independent and Republican votes than any of his opponents.

I have purposefully NOT provided the (obvious) answers to his claims because to answer is to give him control of the argument. That's Rove's tactic, and I have written about that many times in these pages.

Instead, this should be used as a trigger to talk about Rove's history of dissembling, how that is reflected in the Bush Administration's entire approach to public policy and public information. Bush, through Rove, should be attacked for trying to escape responsibility and accountability. And, it will help to make some historical references to rulers whose tenure was so dismal that they could not allow historians to provide objective analyses, and thus try to write the history themselves.

As might have been predicted, Rove raises "historical revisionism" to new depths, what may become known as "hysterical Rovisionism."

Comments

[Waitaminute]

Yeah you ROVE PIG LIAR. Explain just this one point of many.

Why did bush make up lies to justify the war? Seems to me, if i didn't want to be pushed into war, i wouldn't makeup lies to justify it.

Included in those lies is the lie about waking up to mushroom clouds, if we didn't invade.

Or bush rushing to get the inspectors out.

Or the congress had to convince bush (the war president) to give the inspectors more time. Another thing bush was insighting Saddam by freguent fly overs while the inspectors were still on the ground. You are welcome to add to this list.

No bush was licking his chops in anticipation of invading Irag. In fact, they wanted to go into Irag before afganistan as far back as September 2001. No, the congress did not rush bush, bush rushed congress and the country into the invasion. Thses lying TRAITORS!!

[riverjhelum]

It's remarkable how accurate Orwell was when
he predicted "double double unthink"and
the agency of disinformation or information
that becomes no longer true. Rove is delusional
and/or the manifestation of of Orwell's
visionary predictions. Of course Orwell's ideas were based an extrapolation from the
horrors of facism in his time. Facism has never
died out and waits for it's opportunity to
express itself through a "Rove" personality.
God love him he never disappoints.

[EFC]

Rove is reminiscent of the children’s book tiger that runs around a tree until it melts into butter, except that Rove is lapping a mountain of lies and corruption and slowly dissolving into a puddle of pure bullshit. As long as Republican leadership follows his lead, they will limit the Party’s appeal to a dwindling number of delusional ideologues and think tank bottom dwellers.

[Zatzright]

I see Rove, I kick his lying cowardy fat ass!

[ibsteve2u]

Ruh roh - is Rove laying the foundation for a day when all of those mysteriously "lost" emails on the RNC servers are equally mysteriously "found"?

Just in case, perchance, among them will be a bunch of communiques from the Rove bemoaning the war mongerers in Congress?

And I thought revisionism was a Communist specialty.

[Meteor]

Rove works from the belief that people remember his lies only about ten seconds. He is the one who kept telling Bush he should be a "war president" and that he would be another Winston Churchill.

Charlie
Rose should have his head examined for giving Rove any air time.

[Plowboy]

And now that war loving Congress is pushing Bush to make war on Iran, and although it is not what he wants, he will probably have to do it.

[BillyBob152]

What a load of crap! Rove has no shame. A liar among an Administration full of liars!

[ArtLiquidBlogspot]

Liar,Liar Pants on Fire....

[ashabot]

Does anyone still listen to this lying MF?

[optiquest]

I would think, assumming what Rove was saying is truth, that we could ignite a furious political debate after the conventions next year. Think of it, Hillary or Edwards or Biden put on the spot: Senator; Why did you rush the President into War?

[losangelian1]

are you freaking kidding me?

this is right up there with Rudy Guiliani saying that the Iraq war was Clinton's idea.

[optiquest]

gee, I wonder if Paul Abrams holds any bias towards this story? I bet those not liking rove will say the article is unbiased

[tonyrich]

I guess the chief blamer has to blame Congress for his own failed plans to make tehe Repugs the only party. Sorry Rove your are failed strategist just like the Administration you developed. go retire in Texas and shut up.

[cynic]

Why is rove given a soap box to continue to spread the shit of his lies?

Why is he allowed by the media to speak such utter bullshit without massive rebuttal and reality checks?