Karl Rove on The Huffington Post

James Moore: On the Matter of Karl Rove's Father

2010-03-16T18:36:23Z

In his book and the various interviews and speeches surrounding publication, Karl Rove has made a point of attacking information Wayne Slater and I reported and published regarding Rove's background and the formative years of his political belief system. The topic he has seemed most prickly about deals with his father's sexual orientation. As is his practice, Rove ignores facts to practice skilled denial.

Louis Rove's personal life was nobody's business until his adopted son decided to make gay rights a wedge issue in the campaigns of George W. Bush. Rove, who recently pleaded for privacy during divorce from his wife Darby, pushed policies in campaigns that were designed to interfere in the private lives of gays, lesbians, and transgender people. Rove has no right to demand privacy when he refuses to respect it in the lives of other individuals and families. His relationship with his father is context for his politics and interest in his father is a consequence of those politics.

When he was interviewed by Matt Lauer on The Today Show, Rove said he had no idea if his father was gay. If this is the case, Karl was one of the few people who knew Louis Rove that was not aware of his sexual orientation. In our book, The Architect: Karl Rove and the Dream of Absolute Power, (I disagreed with the publisher's hyperbolic subtitle), I interviewed several people in Palm Springs, California about Louis Rove and his politically ambitious son. Joseph Koons, who was Louis Rove's best friend for 13 years, told me, "Louie didn't hide the fact that he was gay. But he didn't play it up either. We had lots of gay and straight friends. I was never the effeminate type and neither was Louie. We didn't play it up that way, either. But he was gay. And so am I."

Although Joe Koons, a retired insurance company executive, was the only one of Louis Rove's gay friends to go on the record for our book, two other neighbors were quoted and confirmed that Rove had lived openly as a gay man. Koons took Rove to numerous social gatherings with other older gay men but Louis preferred to spend his time at home in his Palm Springs neighborhood. Koons said he was not romantically involved with Louis but was as "close as a brother" and that Karl was completely aware of his father's sexual orientation.

During an interview for our first book on Rove, Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential, we asked the president's political guru about the causes for the breakup of his parent's marriage and what might have driven his mother, Reba Wood Rove, to commit suicide. At the time, we were not aware of Louis Rove's sexual orientation and were simply asking Karl to speculate because he remembered so vividly his father coming home on Christmas Eve, an ensuing argument, and then the end of the marriage without any real explanation from his mother. An astute observer even at 19 when the marriage failed, Rove continues to claim 40 years later that he had no clue then or now that his dad way gay. When I went to Palm Springs in 2005 prior to the publication of The Architect, one of Louis Rove's neighbors literally laughed when I told him Karl claimed he didn't know what happened to his parents' marriage.

"He [Karl] was obviously hurt by the divorce. It's just absurd when he says, 'I had no idea what the problems were with my parents and their marriage.' He knew damned good and well what was going on. His father had decided to come out of the closet."

In fact, according to Louis Rove's best friend Joe Koons, Rove not only knew his father's sexual orientation but also was comfortable with it and had accepted his father's honesty.

"I don't recall that there was any great tension over it," Koons told me during the 2005 interview. "I don't know how much impact that plays in the family and when they did find out about it. Karl is certainly not dumb. I am sure he knows more than anyone about his father's position. The times I spent with Karl and Louie were wonderful and Karl was always just very, very nice."

Karl, in fact, according to Koons and Louis Rove's neighbors, was a frequent visitor to Palm Springs beginning in the 80s and vacationed almost annually with his father in Santa Fe, New Mexico. It would have been difficult for Rove to not know this fundamental fact about his father.

Rove does get one thing correct in his book. He said that we wrote his father, "after living openly as a gay man," died quietly at home while his son was in the midst of launching the anti-gay issues campaign that was to lead to the re-election of George W. Bush." In his TV interviews, Rove twisted this around to make it sound like we were portraying him as a man who had denied his father, which was not the case. The chapter in our book regarding Louis and Karl Rove repeatedly makes it clear that Bush's Brain honored and loved Louis and was present for a private memorial service.

Lastly, I want to say bluntly I don't give a damn about Louis or Karl Rove's personal lives. But when Karl decided that the private and personal lives of other consenting adults needed to be corrected to suit the moral imperatives of his party's political desires, well, then Karl turned his family into a part of the narrative. As he promotes his revisionist paperweight around the country, he is allowed to take an aggrieved stand of someone whose privacy has been invaded by amoral journalists. What about the lives harmed or ruined by the sexual politics of Rove's mean-spirited campaigning? How is that measured?

Originally, I had told friends I did not want to be drawn into discussions about Rove's book. I've come to resent the poisonous nature of the discourse in our national politics. The notion, however, that silence is consent is more than a little unsettling. Rove started his political ascension with lies and he has now published a book that is filled with a new set of lies that attempt to convince the entirety of America that during the Bush administration everybody got everything wrong; except for Karl and President Bush. This, too, is another Rove lie. And it's criminal for myself or anyone else to allow his lies to continue to live.

Also at http://www.moorethink.com

Peter Hart: Karl Rove, Still Lying on TV About Iraq

2010-03-15T20:37:31Z

Former Bush adviser Karl Rove is making the rounds to promote his new book Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight. He landed on NBC's Meet the Press Sunday, interviewed by Tom Brokaw. Brokaw asked him about his book's discussion of the Iraq War:

BROKAW: And in it, you acknowledge when weapons of mass destruction were not found, everyone was startled and not very happy about that. If that had been the case before war began, you couldn't have gotten congressional authorization.

ROVE: Nor in all likelihood U.N. approval, as we had as well.

BROKAW: Would you have launched the war if you had known there were weapons of mass destruction?

ROVE: Well, as I say in the book, we would not have had either the authorization from Congress nor the U.N., and we probably would have found other ways to constrain his behavior.

There was no U.N. approval for the Iraq War.

The White House always argued that U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441 gave them legal cover for the war, but it did not -- it warned of "serious consequences" if Iraq failed to disarm.

As the U.N. weapons inspectors were reporting back from Iraq, the White House was seeking a second Security Council vote that would have officially sanctioned military action. That effort was unsuccessful, and the U.S./U.K. attack began without that Security Council approval.

This is not ancient history, nor is particularly obscure; coverage of Iraq and the U.N. weapons inspections in early 2003 was fairly intense, and Brokaw's NBC newscast aired several reports on the U.S. efforts to win U.N. support for a war resolution. (Brokaw himself on March 10, 2003, for example: "Tonight, the French vowed to veto any U.S. war resolution at the U.N., while Secretary of State Powell continued to look for votes and a plan that would allow the United States to go to war with some kind of U.N. approval.")

Rove undoubtedly knows this history, too. What he's counting on is that journalists like Brokaw will either not remember these facts, or will be too polite to bring them up.

Lea Lane: Skip Sex & 9 Other Wacky Ideas to Make Up for DST Lost Sleep

2010-03-14T19:46:43Z

Attributed to a savvy Native American: Only a white man could be dumb enough to think he can make a blanket longer by cutting a piece off one end and sewing it on the other.

**

I'm tired! Daylight Saving Time (DST -- also called "Daylight Savings Time") resumed at 2 a.m. Sunday. Clocks moved ahead an hour, allowing for more waking sunlight hours through the summer.

A bit of back story: Europe started DST to conserve fuel during World War I, and many countries now observe a form of "summer time." America adopted the idea from 1918 to 1919 and again in World War II, but now leaves time-change up to state and local governments. Hawaii, American Samoa, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands opted out.

I know, I know. In November we'll readjust the clock for fewer winter daylight hours. But right now, the most important thing in the entire world is to make up for that precious, delicious, much-needed, TRULY IMPORTANT lost hour of sleep!

If desperate to regain that hour, here are 10 compensating strategies for the next few days:

1--Eat dinner in five minutes or less, standing up. Do not use utensils or worry about food groups or calories. Hot dogs in buns are fastest, with onions and sauerkraut for fiber. Spray whipped cream from the can straight into your mouth for a fast and filling dessert. The time you save can be put to sleeping.

2--Do not drink anything after 6 pm. You may be thirsty from the sauerkraut and the whipped cream but you don't want to get up in the middle of the night to pee. To make up for the lost sleep due to DST, you'll need to dry out or hold it in.

3--Put your next day's clothes out, right by your bed. Do not select spandex or items with attached feet, as these take too long. Jumpsuits are fastest. Go commando. Do not bother with socks. Flip flops are easiest. Wear pants with elastic waistbands and tops with zippers. Do a trial run to see if you can dress in under a minute, and if not, drop one more item until you do.

4--Simplify night-time grooming. This routine often takes an hour if you count pimple-popping, toning, moisturizing, admiring yourself in the mirror and prancing around to a song in your head. Do not clip toenails or nose hair. Do not tweeze chin hairs. If you must shower, hop in and out in a minute, multi-tasking by peeing in the shower and exfoliating as you dry off. No shaving or hair washing. As for teeth, do not floss, and unplug the three-minute toothbrush that beeps. Just put some toothpaste on your finger and swipe around for 10 seconds, or chew gum in the shower.

5--Get into your bed an hour earlier, and relax. Do not under any circumstances think of scary things such as the financial crisis, health care, or Karl Rove. Especially do not think of the Eric Massa-Glenn Beck dialogue. You might try counting down, but forget sheep; think in terms of long lists, such as Tiger Wood's girlfriends.

6--Leave the TV off. If possible record the shows you will miss by going to bed early. If you must fall asleep with the TV on, be sure to set the snooze function, which you probably never knew you had; otherwise you might wake up to an infomercial with the Slap Chop man and have terrible nightmares.

7--Skip sex. Lack of grooming will no doubt alleviate that hour-draining activity. I know some of you don't take an hour for sex. Some of you don't even partake, in which case you're out of luck and must make up the lost DST hour in the other ways, for sure. Exception: If sex usually takes five minute or less you may indulge, as it results in deeper sleep. (But I offer sympathy and can suggest some therapists.)

8--Get deeper sleep from the hours you do have. This may mean taking a sleeping pill to knock you out. Do not take it with water. (See above, no water allowed.) And this is not suggested if you are alone. If the pill doesn't go down be sure your partner knows the Heimlich maneuver.

You can also lower the blinds to keep the light out and tie up the dog or cat so it doesn't jump on the bed. If your partner snores you can stuff one of those socks you're not wearing in his or her mouth to keep the noise from waking you up. If they stop breathing entirely have the phone right by your bed along with instructions for CPR. This may tire you out and aid in deeper sleep for both, especially for the one suffocated.

9--Skip breakfast. Since you haven't had sex and haven't expended much energy you can sleep through breakfast. (No morning sex, needless to say. This would negate the additional hour gained from no nighttime sex!). If you are famished you can toss dry cereal in your mouth as you dress.

10--Shorten and simplify your morning grooming routine. Do not use that roller to remove dandruff on your clothing. Do not brush your teeth. Skip deodorant. Do not style your hair. Do not shower (even if you have not showered the night before. Not really needed this morning unless you spent the five minutes to have sex.) Most of all, do not sit on the toilet and read until evacuated. Simply hold it in, splash water on your face and strategic areas, gargle with some mouthwash, run your fingers through your hair and jump in your easy-to- put-on clothes.

If you follow these rules you will now be sick to your stomach, dirty, ungroomed, sloppily dressed, constipated, hungry, thirsty and horny. But you will have made up the lost DST hour!

As an alternative, stay in bed a couple of mornings, preferably with a partner, and have some great sex and extra sleep. That's the best way of all to initiate Daylight Saving(s) Time.

Karl Rove: Republican Party Can't Be Just The Party Of 'No'

2010-03-14T08:58:20Z

Karl Rove, architect of George W. Bush's two presidential election wins, says he believes Republicans need to offer more than just opposition to Democrats in the November congressional elections.

Frank Rich: The New Rove-Cheney Assault On Reality

2010-03-14T08:24:24Z

Now the revisionist floodgates have opened with the simultaneous arrival of Karl Rove's memoir and Keep America Safe, a new right-wing noise machine invented by Dick Cheney's daughter Liz and the inevitable William Kristol. This gang's rewriting of history knows few bounds. To hear them tell it, 9/11 was so completely Bill Clinton's fault that it retroactively happened while he was still in office. The Bush White House is equally blameless for the post-9/11 resurgence of the Taliban, Al Qaeda and Iran. Instead it's President Obama who is endangering America by coddling terrorists and stopping torture.

Mark Greenbaum: Karl Rove's Missed Opportunity

2010-03-12T11:52:33Z

As a general matter, political memoirs are a dicey proposition. While they carry the promise of deep access and a wealth of fresh gossip, they generally fail to deliver the goods, offering tiny morsels instead of juicy gobs of storytelling. More importantly, because memoirs are written by insiders from one side of the spectrum or the other, they are almost always slanted to the point that their accounts are inherently tainted and difficult to take at face value.

The sad fact is that the cannon of great books out there, books which actually explore the modern political world with both a depth befitting a true student of politics but also from the perspective of an insider who is on the frontlines, are rare. Stories in the former category might sell well and even make the bestsellers' list, but their appeal beyond offering a string of vapid anecdotes with a one month shelf-life is limited. In other words, they are not particularly rewarding to the shrewd observer or politics junkie.

Karl Rove's new memoir is no exception to this rule, but its release represents one of the bigger losses for valuable insider accounts.

Rove is most known for being "Bush's brain," the 43rd President's top political adviser and the architect of Bush's two national electoral victories. Beyond that, Rove helped twice elect Bush to the governorship of Texas, and as one of the most talented direct mail consultants of all time, Rove was a pivotal figure in the rebirth and ultimate dominance of the Republican Party in Texas after a century of dormancy. In short, Rove has a host of experiences and triumphs in politics that are unrivaled, and whether you like him or loathe him, he is unquestionably one of the sharpest political minds of the last 50 years.

Consequently, Rove could have written a brilliant, balanced tome on politics that would have been unlike nearly all others on the market today. Instead, because he is simply so deeply partisan, he has written just another account which will delight one side and infuriate the other and eventually end up in the bargain bin between David Plouffe's new book, Sarah Palin's memoir, Harry Reid's fresh release, and ones like them.

Rove's partisanship has been a ubiquitous presence in the news for over the last decade, and since President Bush left office, the former White House guru has assumed an even larger role, appearing regularly on Fox News Channel, the op-ed page of the Wall Street Journal, and in other known right-leaning outlets where he has unceasingly heaped scorn and invective on President Obama and Democrats generally.

This was to be expected: Rove cut his teeth and made his career bones with the singular purpose of defeating Democrats at the polls, and his personal viewpoints are nothing new. To think that Rove would enter private life and try to become some sort of neutral statesman after a lifetime of political combat would be a laughably foolish proposition.

So, perhaps it was a bit naïve to hope that when Rove inevitably sat down to write an account of his rich career in political life he would look dispassionately at his victories and defeats alike and attempt to draw out some important general lessons on the field that no one else has the experience or knowledge to elucidate.

Instead it appears that Rove's new memoir, ominously titled Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight, was written for two purposes: to defend President Bush's eight years in office while glossing over those parts of Bush's tenure that were abject failures, and to launch a coherent screed against Bush's successor, Barack Obama.

Of course it is Rove's prerogative and his right to write his memoirs in a slanted manner; besides, he will likely make more money writing an angry, score-settling book than he could have with something that might have resonated better with political junkies like me. The almighty dollar is hard to turn down.

Rove should have done better, but he is either too stubborn to write a balanced perspective, or by virtue of his lifetime in partisan dens, is incapable of doing so.

In layman's terms, and borrowing from the comparison Rove himself used to great effect in selling George W. Bush over Al Gore and John Kerry, if given the opportunity, I would not have a beer with Karl Rove because even though he could potentially be the best person to talk political shop with in the country, he would probably be a boring -- albeit animated -- companion, and use the conversation to assail Democrats and not offer a word of harsh appraisal of his own side. It would be a pointless exercise.

Frankly, watching Rove ramble incoherently on the evils of the Obama administration are sad to behold. Rove could be the smartest political commentator in the nation if he wanted to be, but given today's partisan atmosphere, he prefers to be just another slobbering talking head. Clearly, his outlook was the natural consequence of a lifetime in the partisan pressure-cooker which incubated his career, but it is nonetheless regrettable given what Rove could offer in the way of critical analysis.

Rove's new book is a reflection of this and the broader trend of peddling partisanship above all else.

Stephen Colbert Rips Karl Rove's New Book, Compares Rove To A Ham (VIDEO)

2010-03-12T10:40:05Z

Stephen Colbert ruthlessly mocked Karl Rove's new book, "Courage and Consequence," on "The Colbert Report" last night. He started his segment by pulling out a large ham with glasses that looked uncannily like Rove, but the ripping didn't stop there.

Colbert on the title of the book: "It's just like 'Pride and Prejudice,' but even more prejudiced!"

On spilling the secrets of the memoir: "Spoiler Alert: Bush was a great president!"

Colbert pointed out that the memoir is almost entirely made up of Rove's denials of his involvement in various scandals, from the rumor about John McCain's illegitimate black baby to the swiftboat rumors about John Kerry. "I'm telling you, folks," said Stephen, "this is a gripping who-didn't-dun-it."

WATCH:

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Rove: I'm 'Proud' Of Waterboarding

2010-03-12T09:50:01Z

In an interview with the BBC, Karl Rove declared he is 'proud' of the US's use of harsh interrogation techniques such as waterboarding. The former Bush adviser argued that the techniques helped keep America safe from further terrorist attacks and that they should not ultimately be considered torture.

Rove told the BBC: "I'm proud that we used techniques that broke the will of these terrorists and gave us valuable information that allowed us to foil plots such as flying aeroplanes into Heathrow and into London, bringing down aircraft over the Pacific, flying an aeroplane into the tallest building in Los Angeles and other plots."

Regarding the legality of the techniques sanctioned in a series of controversial memos by Bush administration lawyers in 2002, Rove said "They're appropriate, they're in conformity with our international requirements and with US law."

Asked whether he thought waterboarding was torture, Rove said, "No, it's not."

"Yes, I'm proud that we kept the world safer than it was, by the use of these techniques," he said.

President Obama banned the use of waterboarding last year, stating that it was a form of torture and its use a "mistake."

You can watch video of Rove's interview with the BBC here.

Karl Rove Terms Al Gore "One Angry Dude," Claims Missing Florida Ballots From 2000 Election Are "In His Garage"

2010-03-11T19:17:14Z

Karl Rove has very few regrets. At an intense Q&A yesterday, the senior adviser to President George W. Bush defended the Administration on everything from the Iraq war, to campaign tactics, to its response to Hurricane Katrina. On the invasion of Iraq, Rove said that one of the few things he would have changed is coming out against the critics -- including Democrats who had voted for the invasion -- sooner when it was determined that there were no weapons of mass destruction.

"You've got to either hold everybody accountable, or you've got to drop this myth," said Rove, who recently admitted to the error. "This pernicious, corrosive, hypocritical lie that Bush lied about weapons of mass destruction."

The event, which took place at the 92Y in Manhattan was in honor of the release of Rove's new memoir, Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight, was hosted by CNN's Gloria Borger and covered a broad range of topics.

For every tough question Borger threw at him, Rove had a defense.

Nasty campaign tactics against John McCain in 2000? It was an individual who Rove knew nothing about, and McCain should have seized the moment, not played victim.

Swift-boating John Kerry? It was a group that Rove knew nothing about, and their most effective ad was just using Kerry's own words against him. When Borger suggested that was still a low blow, Rove retorted: "I guess using John Kerry's own words against him was kind of a low blow."

He questioned the assertion that Bush "cherry picked" intelligence in the run up to the Iraq war and said that Congress had access to the same intelligence the administration did. When asked about Katrina, Rove cited the inaccurate information the administration was receiving from local authorities. The financial collapse? "It wasn't the banks that brought this on. What brought this on primarily were the excesses of two government-sponsored enterprises: Fannie and Freddie," he said.

Rove got off a number of zingers (when asked by an audience member about Vice President "Darth Cheney" he corrected, "No, no, no, no, no. You've got it all wrong -- I'm Darth Vader, Cheney is [Emperor] Palpatine").

When Borger asked him jokingly, "now that the [2000 election] is over, where are the Florida ballots?" Rove answered, "In my garage," to uproarious laughs from the audience. He described Al Gore as, "one angry dude."

But not everyone was a fan. At one point a protestor interrupted the event unfolding a sign and shouting "war criminal" before being escorted out, and throughout the event, members of the audience lobbed occasional comments as Rove spoke. He acknowledged the negative opinions many have of him but said, "If I were to react to what people said about me, I'd be in the fetal position."

When asked about whom he would have chosen as his vice presidential nominee in 2008, Rove said it would not have been Palin but would have likely gone with Romney. Though he joked that the McCain campaign didn't call him too much for advice.

Rove expressed disappointment in the way President Barack Obama had emphasized his centrist credentials while campaigning, but tacked left once entering office. When Borger suggested that Bush had done the same thing, Rove disagreed, saying that "No Child Left Behind" and social security reform were centrist efforts.

Asked about Liz Cheney's "Al Qaeda 7" commercial about the loyalties of Justice Department lawyers, Rove avoided taking a firm stance, but said, "How comfortable as a country would we be if we said, 'the lawyers from Enron... let's put them on the SEC and have them help determine policy regarding these same kinds of frauds'?"

Rove predicted that if health care reform passed, the House would go Republican in the midterm election. He added, "Whatever method they use in the Senate to pass it, we will use to repeal it."

Rove: Bush Is 'Doing Really Well,' Has A 'Wonderful Life'

2010-03-11T15:08:24Z

On Wednesday, Karl Rove joined CNN's Wolf Blitzer In 'The Situation Room' to talk about his new memoir 'Courage and Consequences: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight.' (See our 13 must-read passages HERE).

Naturally, the conversation turned to Rove's current relationship with his former boss. Rove told Blitzer and the former president are in touch almost every day, over either the phone or email.

"How is he doing?" Blitzer asked.

"He's doing really well. He's -- he's got a wonderful life." Rove said. "He's deeply involved in his presidential center in Dallas. He's polishing a book that will be out in November. And life is really good for him."

(h/t FishbowlDC)

Alex Palmer: Karl Rove Comes Out Swinging at Q&A

2010-03-11T13:48:48Z

Karl Rove has very few regrets. At an intense Q&A yesterday, the senior adviser to President George W. Bush defended the Administration on everything from the Iraq war, to rough campaign tactics, to its response to Hurricane Katrina. Rather than expressing regrets about the Iraq invasion, Rove said he only wished he had responded faster to Democrats who first supported the war but then turned on Bush when it became clear that there were no weapons of mass destruction.

"You've got to either hold everybody accountable, or you've got to drop this myth," said Rove. "This pernicious, corrosive, hypocritical lie that Bush lied about weapons of mass destruction."

The event, which took place at 92Y in Manhattan in connection with the release of Rove's new memoir, Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight, was hosted by CNN's Gloria Borger and covered a broad range of topics.

For every tough question Borger threw at him, Rove was quick with a justification. The spreading of nasty rumors about John McCain in the 2000 South Carolina primary? It was all coordinated by an individual who Rove had nothing to do with, and McCain should have seized the moment, not played victim. Swift-boating John Kerry? It was all coordinated by a group that Rove had nothing to do with, and their most effective ad was just using Kerry's own words, from his testimony about the Vietnam War, against him. When Borger suggested that was still a low blow, Rove retorted: "I guess using John Kerry's own words against him was kind of a low blow."

He questioned the assertion that Bush "cherry picked" intelligence in the run up to the Iraq war, saying that Congress had access to the same intelligence the administration did. When asked about Katrina, Rove cited the inaccurate information the administration was receiving from local authorities. The financial collapse? "It wasn't the banks that brought this on; what brought this on primarily were the excesses of two government-sponsored enterprises: Fannie and Freddie," he said.

Rove got off a number of zingers (when asked by an audience member about Vice President "Darth Cheney" he corrected, "No, no, no, no, no. You've got it all wrong--I'm Darth Vader, Cheney is [Emperor] Palpatine"). When Borger asked him jokingly, "now that the [2000 election] is over, where are the Florida ballots?" Rove answered, "In my garage," to laughs from the audience. He described Al Gore as "one angry dude."

But not everyone was a fan. At one point a protester interrupted the event unfolding a sign and shouting "war criminal" before being escorted out, and throughout the event members of the audience lobbed comments as Rove spoke.

When asked about whom he would have chosen as his vice presidential nominee in 2008, Rove said it would not have been Sarah Palin but would have likely gone with Mitt Romney. Though he joked that the McCain campaign didn't call him too much for advice.

Rove expressed disappointment in the way President Barack Obama had emphasized his centrist credentials while campaigning, but tacked left once entering office. When Borger suggested that Bush had done the same thing, but legislated from the right, Rove disagreed, saying that "No Child Left Behind" and Social Security reform were centrist efforts.

Asked about Liz Cheney's "Al Qaeda 7" commercial about the loyalties of Justice Department lawyers, Rove avoided taking a firm stance, but said, "How comfortable as a country would we be if we said, 'the lawyers from Enron...let's put them on the SEC and have them help determine policy regarding these same kinds of frauds'?"

On health care reform, Rove said he hoped it would be defeated and that Obama would go back to the drawing board to start from scratch with Republican involvement. He predicted that if it passed with only Democratic support, the House would go Republican in the midterm election and, "whatever method they use in the Senate to pass it, we will use to repeal it."

Alice, Wimpy Kid, Romney: Movies And Conservatives Selling Books

2010-03-11T08:54:31Z

Alice bounds out of the rabbit hole; conservative titles are burning up the list; and Wimpy Kid author Jeff Kinney goes Hollywood.

'Alice' is a wonder: Alice may have fallen down a rabbit hole in Lewis Carroll's classic Alice in Wonderland, but she's moving up USA TODAY's Best-Selling Books list, landing at No. 31.

Janine R. Wedel: Shadow Elite : March to War - Rove, Perle, & Truthiness

2010-03-11T06:58:32Z

For the rest of March, to mark seven years since the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the Shadow Elite column each week will focus on what I call in my book the "Neocon core," a tiny circle of longtime ideological allies who used their interlocking relationships across government, think tanks, business, and national borders to achieve their vision of asserting American power, and firepower, to remake the Middle East. The second Iraq war was the apotheosis of that vision. This week, the dark art of truthiness, and the marketing of the war. -Janine R. Wedel
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In his new book, Karl Rove is insistent that President Bush did not lie to Americans about the threat of weapons of mass destruction that was the casus belli for the March 2003 invasion of Iraq. And that very well may be the case, because the Bush White House created their own version of the truth that the President could plausibly embrace as fact, a slippery practice that comedian Stephen Colbert a few years later would put a name to: "truthiness" - defined as "the quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true rather than those known to be true." The powerful former White House political advisor was one of the purveyors of the truthiness that helped lead the U.S. to war.

Rove's brand of precision marketing was crucial to the group I call in my book Shadow Elite the Neocon core, a tight-knit dozen or so power brokers who had worked together for decades in various incarnations to realize their goals for an aggressive American foreign policy. Since the end of the Cold War, they shared one overriding conviction: that America should favor an aggressive, preemptive U.S. foreign policy to confront potential enemies, especially in the Middle East.

The ways and means that members of this Neocon core have perfected to accomplish their agendas provide a stark example of the trend I explore in Shadow Elite: a new system for exerting power and influence that I believe undermines democracy. In recent decades, top power brokers are increasingly using untraditional means to push their own agendas and those of their associates or fellow-believers, leaving their actions impervious to accountability. These "flexians", as I call them, move seamlessly among overlapping (and not fully revealed) roles in government, business, media, and think tanks to serve their own agendas; they bend official rules and bypass or undermine bureaucracy, organizational loyalty, official government, and professional expertise; and, as we'll see here, they also bend the truth: practicing truthiness to sell their message, playing with reality to give the appearance or trappings of truth without actual truth.

The Neocon core, and a much larger array of ideological neoconservatives, did not invent truthiness, but they took it to new heights. With Richard Perle, power broker par excellence--at the epicenter of a head-spinning array of activities in quasi-government, think tanks, and business--and as linchpin of the Neocon core, these flexians, operating together in what I call their "flex net", divined their own reality, namely the imminent threat to America posed by an Iraq supposedly armed with weapons of mass destruction. And then they went about marketing it.

Vice President Dick Cheney's office was pivotal, operating through an "alternate national security staff" that undercut the actual National Security Council, according to chief of staff for Secretary of State Colin Powell, Lawrence Wilkerson. And with regard to decision making in the Pentagon, Neocon core players Paul Wolfowitz, deputy secretary of defense, and Douglas Feith, undersecretary of defense for policy, were key.

To facilitate the mission, members of the core set up alternative structures: two secretive offices in the Pentagon that dealt with policy and intelligence after September 11--the Counter Terrorism Evaluation Group, established in October 2001, and the Office of Special Plans, founded in September 2002.
Perle, ever the ringmaster, helped recruit staff for these offices, with hiring seemingly based on loyalty to the cause above old-fashioned credentials. Flynt Leverett, an NSC senior staff member, told me:

I have no objection to people who have different views than I do working through the system. But the neocons worked around processes in ways I thought were illegitimate. There were constant efforts to pressure the intelligence community to provide assessments that would support their [the neocons'] views. If they couldn't get what they wanted out of the intelligence community, they simply created their own intelligence.

Once the "reality" was created, it could then be sold. Richard Perle and the Neocon core helped organize a band of collaborators in the media, friendly think tanks, and political organizations.
These players formed an overlapping effort with another group of longtime neoconservative activists who mostly made their mark as public intellectuals and pundits.

Perle was both orchestrator and mouthpiece, and the ambiguity of his role in the White House served his cause well. He took to the airwaves to claim that there were "substantial links" between Iraq and al Qaeda. (In fact, seven years ago today, the New York Times ran an article with poll numbers showing that 45 percent of Americans believed Saddam Hussein was "personally involved" in 9/11, even though no credible evidence of that has ever existed.)

Perle gave talks all over Europe promoting the war as if he was something more than the chairman of the Defense Policy Board, a White House advisory committee. Then-Secretary of State Powell privately grumbled that "Perle is doing a lot of proselytizing around the world." As former chief of staff Wilkerson expressed:

He was making remarks as if he were an official inside the U.S government. The Germans, French, Brits, and Japanese perceived him as an official purveying official U.S. Policy.

The fact is, they were right. Perle was purveying what he hoped would become U.S policy, (and what did become U.S. policy), but in the way that the shadow elite finds most efficient: through all manner of official, might-be official, and unofficial channels, using power that can't be summed up in a vague job title like Perle's, or challenged by traditional means of accountability.

Helping to manage the marketing of the war was the White House Iraq Group. Rove was reportedly a regular at their weekly meetings. WHIG was a secret organization founded in the summer of 2002 to persuade the American public that the war in Iraq was necessary by any means possible, including by leaking intelligence to the media. The Washington Post reported that the group "wanted gripping images and stories not available in the hedged and austere language of intelligence." And so the truth collapsed into truthiness.

One of the most potent metaphors was that of the "smoking gun" and the "mushroom cloud". According to Michael Isikoff and David Corn in their book Hubris, it was in a WHIG meeting that chief Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson suggested it to sell the public on the supposed nuclear threat that Iraq posed. From Hubris:

The original plan had been to place it in an upcoming presidential speech, but WHIG members fancied it so much that when the Times reporters contacted the White House to talk about their upcoming piece [about aluminum tubes], one of them leaked Gerson's phrase -- and the administration would soon make maximum use of it.

Of course the "facts" that make up the "truthy" picture are really images --resilient ones, oft repeated, from the mushroom cloud and supposed terrorist training ground in Iraq to the supposed meeting between the 9/11 terrorist Mohamed Atta and an Iraqi official. And it doesn't really matter if the mushroom cloud or training ground are real or the meeting took place, the images stick, and we
believe the image, thus producing the "reality."

The acceptance of truthiness is made all the more insurgent by the institutional
backdrop it partially plays on: the devaluation of knowledge and the blurring of boundaries between punditry and journalism, the parallel decline in the institution of investigative reporting, and the dearth of memory. Practitioners of truthiness know that the truth of the present moment may not be that of yesterday. Our neoconservative protagonists have mastered this art around the Iraq war, constantly revising history as needed.

Just as WHIG was mobilizing in the summer of 2002, less than a year before the U.S would invade Iraq, an unnamed senior aide to President Bush summed up the White House attitude to journalist Ron Suskind.

The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." ... "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality--judiciously, as you will--we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors...and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

Seven years later, one wishes that Iraq was now simply a matter of historian research. But the reality is that U.S. forces are still on the ground, in harm's way, and the country is still dangerously unstable. No amount of truthiness can make that hard fact go away.

Linda Keenan is editor of the Shadow Elite column.

Joseph C. Wilson: Courage and Consequence : Less Memoir Than Hoax

2010-03-09T20:44:53Z

Karl Rove's book Courage and Consequence is less memoir than hoax. The chapters that relate to the CIA leak scandal are yet another attempt to deflect attention from his central role in the betrayal of Valerie Plame Wilson's identity as a covert CIA officer.

His distortions and fabrications are consistent with his approach throughout this sordid and criminal affair. Wasting his opportunity to tell the truth, he offers absolutely nothing new, and his selective use of facts and quotes are a transparent effort to continue his long campaign to confuse people, unfortunately consistent with his past behavior.

His book is a pathetically weak defense of the disastrous policies pursued by the Bush administration, involving our country in a war of choice based on false intelligence and badly tarnishing the good name of the United States of America.

Nothing in Karl Rove's book refutes those facts. His book, however, is illuminating in further exposing his political methods, especially his reliance on personal insults, not simply towards Valerie and myself, but also towards all those who opposed his unprincipled behavior.

If any additional proof to the irrefutable historical record were needed, Rove's book demonstrates once again the actions of a vindictive, angry and petty man. Karl Rove betrayed his nation; now he has betrayed history.

David Wild: Exclusive!: Alternate Working Titles Revealed For Karl Rove's Courage and Consequence

2010-03-09T19:43:03Z

Thanks to my extensive contacts in the publishing and political sabotage industries, I was able to recover the following list of Karl Rove's alternate working titles for his new semi-literary gem, Courage & Consequences:

Mean & Meaner
War & War
Ivory & Ivory
The Morgage Crisis Miracle Diet
Foul-Ups, Bleeps & Right Wing Blunders
Up in Plames
Fair Or Balanced
Dumb & Dumber
Turner & Hooch
Semi-Precious: A Political Memoir Based On The Novel "Push-Polling" by Sapphire.

Any readers out there hear about any other alternate titles for Karl's Foxy new memoir? Please do share.

Karl Rove Memoir: The 13 Must-Read Passages From 'Courage And Consequence'

2010-03-09T10:00:56Z

Tuesday marks the release of Karl Rove's memoir, "Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight."

To help you decide whether this 608-page opus is worth reading, we've provided a list of the some of the most memorable quotes from the book. Take a look at Rove's best excerpts and vote for the most Rovian.

Marshall Fine: Movie Review: Green Zone

2010-03-09T07:54:53Z

You get the feeling that director Paul Greengrass wouldn't know what to do with a camera that was locked into position -- on a tripod, for example, or a dolly. He seems that committed to jittery handheld camera work.

It's something of a trademark, whether in dramatized nonfiction such as Bloody Sunday and United 93 or amped-up action like his two installments of the Jason Bourne saga.

For Green Zone, he once more employs his patented unsteady-cam, this time in Baghdad, a month after the invasion known as Shock & Awe that toppled Saddam Hussein. Never mind that the war was launched on the false pretense of removing weapons of mass destruction (or, as Karl Rove's new memoir would have it, it was launched because of bad intelligence, the watch word of the Bush administration).

"Inspired" by a nonfiction book by Washington Post reporter Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Green Zone recounts the botched takeover of Iraq, in which clueless American bureaucrats made every wrong decision possible (see the award-winning doc No End in Sight by Charles Ferguson, or read Chandrasekaran's book). Actually, that destructive occupation -- which led to the massive insurgency that followed -- is the backdrop for the story in Brian Helgeland's script.

The film itself focuses on Roy Miller (Matt Damon), an Army chief warrant officer who heads a squad tasked with finding those WMD (he never says "WMDs"). It's four weeks after the invasion (which occurred seven years ago next week) and three separate missions have cost him men but turned up nothing, despite what is supposedly solid intelligence.

But when he tries to question the source of those intel reports, he's treated like a skunk at a garden party and shut down with reminders that, in the chain of command, his job is not to question orders, only follow them. In particular, he's given the evil eye by Clark Poundstone (Greg Kinnear), the head of the American mission (and an obvious stand-in for Bush lackey Paul Bremer, author of the worst policies implemented in the first weeks of the occupation).

But Martin Brown (Brendan Gleeson), a disgruntled CIA station chief, offers Miller a sympathetic ear. He too is suffering from bad information and doesn't trust Poundstone. But Poundstone has more suck with the White House.

On one of his WMD hunts, Miller is approached by an Iraqi civilian (Khalid Abdalla), who offers to lead him to a meeting where high-ranking officials of the toppled Saddam government are in attendance. Though Miller doesn't catch the big fish - a general who is the jack of clubs on that deck of cards the U.S. issued with Saddam's family and staff on them - he does get a clue as to what he's up against. That would be, again, Poundstone, who wants to erase evidence that he fabricated the intel about WMD - and is willing to use Special Forces to cover his tracks.

If you have a memory longer than the average American voter - and actually paid attention to the campaign to hide the truth during those years of Mission Accomplished and preemptive war - you'll find numerous characters who correspond with real-life equivalents. The pieces don't always match the facts, but, beside Poundstone for Bremer, there's a stand-in for Ahmed Chalabi, the Iraqi huckster-exile that American forces tried unsuccessfully to install as the new prime minister. There's also one for Judith Miller, the disgraced New York Times reporter who piped bogus information about Iraq's nonexistent WMD programs onto that paper's front page in the run-up to the war. Here, she's a Wall Street Journal reporter played by Amy Ryan.

This is a movie which, given a stronger sense of purpose, might have recounted exactly those failings and shown in stark relief how we were hoodwinked into war.

This review continues on my website.

Richard Valeriani: March 8, 2010, News Update

2010-03-08T21:54:07Z

MARCH 8, 2010, NEWS UPDATE

President Obama calls for "Up or Down" vote on health care reform bill. Sir, would you please define your terms? Republicans don't understand "Up."

Obama critics claim he should have won an Olympic skiing gold medal since nobody is going downhill faster than he is.

Former White House advisor Karl Rove has a book coming out entitled Courage and Consequences. Notice "Truth" is not in the title. You can find the book at your local bookstore in the fiction department.

Rove's greatest regret, it appears, is that he didn't do a better job about lying why the United States invaded Iraq.

Ex-President George W. Bush also writing a book about tough decisions he had to make during his time in office. He says he often resorted to prayer. So much for the power of prayer.

NY Gov. David Patterson, with no chance of election, drops out of race for Governor. He may be blind but he's not deaf. Now embroiled in scandal, with an approval rating of 19% and despite widespread calls for resignation, he says he will complete his term. Hmmm...maybe he is deaf.

Another exemplar of NY politics, Rep. Charles Rangel, also embroiled in multiple scandals, says he will "temporarily" step down at Chairman of the powerful Ways and Means Committee in the Senate. Rangel did it his Way with any Means he could.

Note that if you do not refer to the House Ways and Means Committee as "powerful" in writing, you lose your cliche` license.

As Chairman of that committee, Rangel was influential in writing the nation's tax laws. Maybe he thought that gave him the right to evade those laws.

He said he was stepping down to avoid embarrassing Dem. Candidates running for re-election.
What about embarrassing your constituents? Or yourself?
Not a problem. This was an ethics investigation.

Nancy Pelosi once promised to "drain the swamp," referring to Congressional corruption. So why did it take so long to drain a Rangel?

General Motors recalls 1.3 million vehicles because of steering problems. Who do they think they are, Toyota?

Every major car company shows increased sales in February except Toyota. Wonder why that is?

Air controller at JFK brings kids to work and lets them direct traffic. Extreme version of Take A Child To Work Day. No big deal since most pilots too drunk to notice.

Speaking of pilots, Sully Sullenberger, of landing in the Hudson River fame, retiring. Friendly skies less friendly.

Online report/rumor that Chief Justice Roberts resigning untrue. Damn!

Barbara Walters says this year's pre-Oscar special will be her last. You mean she's still doing it? Who knew?

ABC News cuts 300-400 staffers. But they've still got Diane Sawyer and a Camcorder.

Kathyrn Bigelow first woman to win Best Director Oscar.
When do we run out of "firsts" for women? Oh right, there's still the White House thing.

Sandra Bullock wins Best Actress Oscar night after winning Worst Actress Razzie. A Tale of Two Movies....Best...Worst...

Courage And Consequence : Karl Rove Book Full Of Lies

2010-03-08T19:31:38Z

Karl Rove's forthcoming memoir Courage and Consequence purports to respond to critics by "putting the record straight," but Media Matters has found that Rove's book is full of falsehoods. Below is an ongoing list of Rove's misinformation in the book, which Media Matters obtained in advance of its scheduled release.

Katy Hall: 'Green Zone': The 'Bourne' Team Takes On Iraq, Rovian Politics

2010-03-08T14:51:55Z

On the heels of Karl Rove's improbable assertion that George W. Bush would not have gone to war with Iraq if he had thought there were no WMD comes another narrative about our missteps into war and the confusing months following the invasion.

Paul Greengrass' new movie, Green Zone, makes no bones about its loose relationship with the truth, even though it is adapted from a nonfiction book, Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone by Rajiv Chandrasekaran (2006). It's a high-octane, high-budget, Bourne-esque thriller brimming with sweaty cinematic detail, but there's no mistaking its loud agenda.

At the center of the action is Matt Damon, who plays U.S. Army Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller. His assignment to evacuate a string of would-be WMD sites near Baghdad leaves him obsessed with uncovering the truth instead. It's 2003, Saddam Hussein is still in hiding and the Downing Street Memo has yet to surface in the media.

"Our idea was to have a character who was a good solider who went there thinking he was going to find something," Damon, a longtime outspoken liberal, told the Huffington Post at a recent press day. "He got there and didn't find it, and then asked the question why, which I think is kind of what happened for all of us. We were told something was going to happen and it didn't, and then we went, 'How did we get here? Oh yeah, the weapons. Where were they?'"

Miller is based on a real WMD hunter, Monty Gonzales, who led a mobile exploitation team racing other teams to find nuclear weapons toward the beginning of the war. The first site Monty visited, intel packet in hand, was a porcelain factory listed as a dual-use facility because it was a suspected cover for making WMD.

"He went in there and looked around and said, 'This is all bullshit,'" Damon said. "From the first site he went into, he knew there was something horribly wrong. He said, 'There's no way a rational person could come in and say they're making something here other than porcelain because that's all this place can do.'"

Miller is driven by a question that dogged Congress for years: how can we have highly detailed intelligence that is so wrong? The parties that can answer this question are, for the purpose of the film, boiled down to a few major players.

Defense Intelligence agent Clark Poundstone (Greg Kinnear) is a neocon more or less responsible for shaping the intelligence around the policy. A Wall Street Journal reporter (Amy Ryan) functions as no more than Poundstone's mouthpiece, and the CIA station chief (Brendan Gleeson) is a good guy in the dark. A friendly Iraqi civilian (Khalid Abdalla) risks his life to help Miller capture some high-ranking Baathists because he believes it's a step toward freedom.

The world of the Green Zone, with its shimmering pool, Pizza Hut and bikini-clad women, makes it easy for Americans to remain disconnected from what's happening on the ground.
"When we read Chandrasekaran's book, that provided the perfect setting," Damon said. "It was this sort of surreal Green Zone where there's all kinds of conspiracy and paranoia and intrigue because that's where everyone went to build this shining city on the hill."

The story is a familiar one, and heavy-handed in its reduction to a few characters and 115 minutes. Will Miller find WMD in Iraq? Will American reconstruction efforts in Baghdad go as planned in the face of growing insurgency? Of course not, but there are enough frenetic firefights to maintain a satisfying level of suspense.

Greengrass wants the movie (shot in Morocco's bleakest desert) to take the viewer into a war zone, and his characteristically shaky camerawork is both effective and annoying. The urgency is carefully packaged for the big screen, but it's hard to forget the clock is also ticking in real time.

That nearly all of the men leaping from Black Hawk helicopters and perched atop Humvees are real-life soldiers between tours of Iraq or Afghanistan drives home the point all the more.

Green Zone opens March 12.

WATCH the trailer:

Conan Neutron: We Just Gave Karl Rove's Book a New Soundtrack

2010-03-08T14:17:27Z

On March 9, 2010, Karl Rove, "Bush's Brain" released a self-aggrandizing contrivance of his political past, Courage and Consequence, in all of its hard-bound, chicken hawk glory. On March 3rd, 2010, a coalition of up-and-coming rock bands released an anticipatory sonic recollection of the gross misdeeds attributable to Rove over the past decade, "Karl Rove: Courage and Consequence -- The Unabridged Audio," in all of its aggressively righteous indignation.

A truly fair and balanced chronicle of the first decade of the New American Century, Karl Rove: Courage and Consequence is available for both free download in any format you want, as well for sale as a beautiful LP package with artwork by Danny Hellman and liner notes by the Rude Pundit and author Jason Myers.

Here's the thing: we funded this thing entirely on pre-orders and donations almost universally at the $20 level or below. This wasn't funded by George Soros, ACORN or any other conservative bogeyman, it was paid for a bunch of broke rock and rollers, the entire thing costing 1/8th of the average speaking fee Karl Rove makes at every speaking appearance. Conceived along the lines of the Nation's Going Rouge vs. Sarah Palin's Going Rogue, it is a record with a very similar title as Karl's ridiculous book, with artwork and songs addressing and lampooning him and his misdeeds. I feel like we've won just by doing it, we've certainly met some notability requirements, but the compilation itself is actually quite good. This is worth noting.

You've already seen some of Karl's advance press, a fluff piece on the Today show and strategic releases about how his major regret is not answering his charges against liberals. This is like saying that your biggest flaw is that you a perfectionist in a job interview. You've seen the dark wizard of the Art of Distraction spinning his web, falling on the sword of ridicule, while whitewashing Bush's legacy, pushing the Overton Window and generally being a snide and deplorable waste of flesh. You are going to see more of it too, but here's a way you can directly fight back. You see, he has the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy (tm), his tv show and multimillions, we have a rag tag bunch of rockers, Mike Malloy and you.

If you have a blog:
Link to http://www.karlrovebook.net, with the words Karl Rove, Karl Rove Book or Courage and Consequence. The more people that link to the site the better our search rankings and the more people know, and the original news item that set me off on this still ranks well.

If you have a reddit or digg account: you can uprate and repost it.

If you have a facebook or twitter you can post this blog or the website or tweet/retweet the site, be our twitter follower, or facebook fan

If you know of a place that can review, sell or play the compilation let us know either here or at the comp e-mail address projectcourageandconsequence@gmail.com and we'll be on it like turd on blossom.

You can also:

purchase a copy of the compilation, to play on your record player, or hang on your wall.

Download digital music files for free, and even pay for and/or review digital downloads at the Amazon mp3 store or Apple's iTunes store.

Do you like video? Sure, don't we all? Here is an example "video" of one of the songs from the compilation, this one is from my band Victory and Associates, and is the final song on the record. If you'd like to help, you can uprate the song, comment, favorite, etc. as well as any one of the other wonderful songs on the compilation:

Lies, and the Lying Liars That Sell Them (Lyrics)

But most of all please help spread the word that the compilation Karl Rove: Courage and Consequence and NOT Karl Rove's Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight is worthwhile. It stands as an unconventional, but very real answer to Rove's distortions, and anybody can find out more at http://www.karlrovebook.net
<a href="http://karlrove.bandcamp.com/album/karl-rove-courage-and-consequence">A Man For Our Times by Karl Rove: Courage and Consequence</a>

A - 22:32

The Heavenly States - A Man for Our Times
Rival Dickens - Forget the Naughts (Rick Valentin from the Poster Children)
Have Special Power - A Rove By Any Other Name
Assistant Cobra - The Art of Distraction
Lambs of Abortion - New American Century
We're Gonna Fight the Eskimos Next - Don't Praise the Machine

B - 22:51
Cartographer - Biggest Asshole in the World
Death Dream - Karl Rove, Let's Get Dirty
Generalissimo - Swarm
Cold Lake - Courage and Consequence
Hurry Up Shotgun - Car Bomb
United Sons of Toil - Invention VS Innovation
Victory and Associates - Lies, and the Lying Liars That Sell Them

NY Assignment Desk: Karl Rove, Nerd Speed Dating, Conservative Thought Salon

2010-03-08T13:57:31Z

Huffington Post continues its local coverage with the help of the Eyes&Ears Citizen Journalism Unit. To join the local reporting team and receive advance assignments, click here or apply to cover any of this week's events by clicking JOIN NOW below.

Note:
The Huffington Post exclusively assigns stories and provides press passes to its Eyes&Ears reporters. If a reporter contacts a venue and request a press pass without explicit permission from the Huffington Post, we reserve the right to ban said reporter from being part of our NYLocal team.

Jeff Danziger: Karl Rove Book

2010-03-07T21:40:26Z

Karl Rove: Colin Powell Ordered Me To 'Drop And Give Him Twenty Push-Ups'

2010-03-05T09:40:33Z

In Karl Rove's new book, "Courage and Consequences: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight," the former Bush adviser explains that then-Secretary of State Colin Powell often told Rove to "drop and give him twenty push-ups."

According to a picture in the book, Rove once obliged, dropping to the floor outside the oval office and performing the exercise while other Bush officials looked on.

"I dropped and gave him twenty push-ups. Right at the entrance of the Oval Office. I could tell it had unsettled him as he nervously encouraged me to stop and get up. But I finished, then jumped to attention and saluted. Powell was rattled. He had an awkward smile. Mine was real. It was the last time Powell ever asked me to drop and give him twenty."

Though the photograph clearly shows what appears to be Rove in the up position of a push-up with Colin Powell bending down close to him, no reports have confirmed Rove's claim that he was able to complete all 20 push-ups.

David Fiderer: Karl Rove's Perversions of History, And His Media Enablers

2010-03-04T16:00:18Z

In his new memoir, Karl Rove does what he does best. To explain away one lie, he comes up with another. He claims that Bush probably would not have invaded Iraq had he known there were no weapons of mass destruction there. Bush knew perfectly well that our WMD intelligence had been fully discredited. So did everyone else. Anyone who says otherwise is lying. It's a lie that Bush and his apologists have been repeating for almost seven years.

For the umpteenth time, on March 7, 2003 the U.N. inspectors reported that there was zero evidence that Iraq had ever made any attempt to develop a nuclear weapon after the Persian Gulf War. Those findings were later affirmed by Bush's own Iraq Survey Group, which said "Iraq did not possess a nuclear device, nor had it tried to reconstitute a capability to produce nuclear weapons after 1991."

As for other types of WMD, Hans Blix also found zero evidence of weapons of mass destruction, aside from a small number of empty chemical munitions, which should have been declared and destroyed. Blix also explained why the evidence previously presented by Colin Powell was bogus. On March 7, 2003, Blix said his team needed a few more weeks to complete their work. Germany, France and others went on the record, stating, "While suspicions remain, no evidence has been given that Iraq still possesses weapons of mass destruction or capabilities in this field."

To mask the dishonesty surrounding the invasion, Rove and others have invoked a standard right-wing ploy, which I'll call "distract-and-conflate." Distract the public with some irrelevant bit of trivia, and then conflate that trivia into the broader narrative designed to confuse the public about who bears the blame. The distraction is usually planted by a friendly media source, and then amplified by others, who seem to be analytically challenged.

A classic case was the quote, "It's a slam dunk," by CIA Director George Tenet, who was never interviewed by Bob Woodward for his book, The Path to War. Whatever Tenet meant at that December 21, 2002 meeting, his point was completely irrelevant by March 2003, when the latest comprehensive on-the-ground intelligence, from a multinational inspection force, had proved Tenet wrong. Neither Bush nor his people ever attempted to reconcile the findings of the U.N. inspectors with their own. Nor did they ever identify any flaws in the inspectors' work product. Nor were they open to allowing the U.N. inspectors to continue to complete their efforts to achieve a definitive report. Nor were they willing to give other members of the U.N. Security Council time to evaluate both sides.

To conflate George Tenet's four-word sound bite, or the more generalized "we-relied-on-faulty-intelligence" excuse, with Bush's decision to invade Iraq, one must engage in a kind of time warp. One must to perpetuate the fiction the U.N. inspectors did not put everyone one notice. This conflation is a shameful perversion of history. Anyone who tacitly or explicitly promotes the lie that Bush invaded in good faith is himself being dishonest.

Rove's other distract-and-conflate ploy relates to the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson. On July 7, 2003, Ambassador Joe Wilson wrote an op-ed piece in the New York Times saying that, because of his work for the CIA, the government had known for a long time that the "uranium from Africa" intelligence, at least as it pertained to Niger, was ridiculously flimsy. Of course, everyone knew that the evidence had been thoroughly debunked by the U.N. inspectors on March 7, 2003. And from March 7, 2003 onward, everyone knew that the case for war based on WMD was entirely spurious. Wilson's revelation never changed what we already knew; it simply amplified our preexisting understanding.

The White House never rebutted Wilson's charges. Quite the opposite. Soon thereafter, his allegations were confirmed by Ari Fleischer, the White House National Security Council and George Tenet. So from that point onward, Wilson's motivations, or veracity, were irrelevant. The circumstances of his work for the CIA, and his wife's employment, were equally irrelevant. Those irrelevancies were used to distract attention away from the Bush Administration's dishonesty, and to conflate Wilson's motivations, whatever they were, with the damning evidence that was always hiding in plain sight. No one, certainly not Karl Rove who told Andrea Mitchell and Chris Matthews that, "Joe Wilsons's wife is fair game," can ever argue that the Wilson's circumstances would further inform us about the case for WMD in Iraq. This distract-and-conflate ploy was the politics of personal destruction at its most vicious.

Rove lied when testifying before a grand jury investigating the outing of Valerie Plame Wilson. He escaped a perjury indictment for one reason, and one reason only. A Time reporter, Viveca Novak, obstructed justice. She gave Rove's lawyer confidential information that enabled Rove to change his testimony, based on "faulty memory." Novak, who went to law school, claims that she made an innocent mistake, which happened to be an egregious ethical lapse, a professional betrayal, and something she deliberately concealed from her colleagues and employer. Shortly thereafter, Bush appointed her husband to a plum job at the FCC.

Let's be clear. Any interviewer who does not directly challenge Rove's claims that the invasion of Iraq, or the outing of Valerie Plame Wilson, was done in good faith is helping promote two shameful lies.