This whole Karl Rove situation has demonstrated exactly how the Rove/Rush/Fox News machine works. They say something fundamentally offensive and obvious inflammatory to just about everyone and then plead ignorance and innocence and say they were either 1) misunderstood, or 2) meant what they said and don't understand why it's such a big deal. In this case the playbook calls for #2. Ultimately it doesn't matter since Rove and company intended to create a distraction like this to keep Americans from seeing how horrible Bush's second term agenda is progressing.
On the Rove flap though, John Cole - a conservative with an independent mind - calls it how it is:
And now, of course, the calls of media bias start. Look, folks- the reason the media is covering the Rove smear more than the alleged Durbin smear is because by and large, the people in the media can read. Durbin's remarks, one more time:
If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime -- Pol Pot or others -- that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners.
No matter how many times you say it, he did not call our soldiers Nazis. He just didn't. It was a stupid remark to make given that he had to know it would be distorted, but there is no way to claim he called the troops Nazis unless you just see whatever you want to see.
The reason Rove's remarks are being attacked as a stab in the back launched all Democrats is because it is. He created a world with two lines of thought- one conservative, one liberal. The conservative position just so happened to be the one he thought was right, the one he aligned with the GOP, and the positions advocated by this Republican administration.
The other line of thought he attributed to the opposition, who is the Democratic party. There was no mention of 'some liberals,' or 'some Democrats,' and for good measure he threw in Durbin and Dean, just in case we didn't make the not-so-subtle connection.
You are simply lying to yourself if you try to claim otherwise, and it is pretty clear right now that this is a coordinated strategy to mute opposition. Durbin was just the opportunistic opening they were looking for...
This attempt by Republicans to say that Rove was talking about "liberals" and not Democrats is one of the most dishonest things I've ever heard. He wasn't talking about MoveOn there. He was openly declaring liberals (i.e. Democrats, since he mentioned Durbin and Howard Dean) of treason. Here is the sound-byte which hasn't gotten nearly enough play in the media:
Let me put this in fairly simple terms: Al Jazeera now broadcasts to the region the words of Senator Durbin, certainly putting America’s men and women in uniform in greater danger. No more needs to be said about the motives of liberals.
Rove is saying liberals (Durbin here) are motivated to put American soldiers in greater danger. There is no other way to read it. On top of that, Al Jazeera wouldn't be playing Durbin's remarks if GOP.com didn't send them out under distorted and just plain wrong auspices to 13 million people. The only way Durbin's (correct) remarks could have endangered anyone is if they were completely and knowingly misinterpreted and then broadcast endlessly through an echo chamber.
Rove should resign.
**UPDATE**: Via the newly redesigned Daily Kos comes a website filled with reactions from liberal American soldiers about Rove's comments. Here is a great one:
As a veteran who has worked in military intelligence and counterintelligence under three presidents, regardless of their politics, I find Rove's comments to be not only offensive, but also grossly negligent in their description of conservatives. Conservatives did indeed look at the attacks and prepare for war. What Rove neglected to say was that they prepared for the wrong war. A more accurate statement would have been "Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 and immediately saw it as an opportunity to justify their existing PNAC plan of invading Iraq, although Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11." He should have also clarified that while liberals were determined to find those responsible and bring them to justice, conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 and announced that they really weren't that concerned about finding bin laden.
The most telling statement that Rove didn't make is that conservatives saw the warnings of the savage attacks of 9/11 and chose to ignore them.
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