[Servant of the Cross]

That will leave a mark.

[Servant of the Cross]

Well done! You have defined Karl. A ‘tactician’ who is morally bankrupt. A soulless political hack.

[Servant of the Cross]

ping ...

[CincyRichieRich]

CEW...nailed it...I will take it a step farther in thinking there was some agreement between he and 0bola to tear down Hillary and leaving a huge push for Jeb and on 0bola’s side...Warren. Remember if things get bad doesn’t the Bush family have a large ranch in Paraguay?

[Mr Ramsbotham]

Rove, you malevolent bastard!

[samtheman]

This is an extremely important article.

[G Larry]

The unwillingness to prove Iraq’s WMDs actually goes much further than this.

We had better evidence much earlier but preferred not to reveal how we got that evidence.

[nathanbedford]

On August 15, 2009 I offered the following reply relevant to this subject which so struck me that I thought it deserved attention. I reported on a television interview I witnessed by Karl Rove in which he laid the blame for failing to oppose the allegedly missing weapons of mass destruction and the meme, "Bush lied and people died" which proved so destructive to Republican credibility and Republican electoral chances in the succeeding years directly at Bush's feet.

Here is that reply:

As a result of the Bush administration's rope- a- dope strategy, we very nearly lost the war in Iraq, we are isolated in the world, we lost both houses of Congress in 2006, we have put an extreme leftist who could actually be a Manchurian Marxist in the White House and, finally, we have so damaged the Republican brand and the legitimacy of conservative principles that we are probably condemned to wander in the wilderness for a generation.

So your question, why in heaven's name did George Bush fail so pathetically to defend his administration and fight his corner, is apposite and one that I have been asking on these threads for four years. You can imagine my astonishment when I witnessed here in Germany a Karl Rove press conference, I think on CNN International, in which he replied to a question about why the administration did not defend itself against charges such as, "Bush lied and people died." He said he actually went to President Bush and told him that the administration must fight back that it was threatening its entire agenda domestically as well as in Iraq. As inconceivable as it sounds, Bush forbade Rove to wage such a campaign saying that it would divert the administration from other agenda items.

[The_Media_never_lie]

Why does Fox News still insist on giving him air time?

[PoloSec]

Rove has always been the enemy within, his treasonous behaviour regarding WMD’s was so successful he has since double downed.

[Maceman]

Always a good time to remind people that when he was president, self-serving scumbag Bill Clinton was so convinced that Saddam had WMD that he bombed Baghdad.

On December 16, 1998, on the eve of the scheduled House vote on his impeachment, Bill Clinton launched a surprise bombing attack on Baghdad. As justification for this exploit, he cited the urgent threat that Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction posed to America, and the need for immediate action.

Almost immediately, the House Democrats held a caucus and emerged calling for a delay in the impeachment proceedings. House minority leader Dick Gephardt made a statement: "We obviously should pass a resolution by saying that we stand behind the troops. I would hope that we do not take up impeachment until the hostilities have completely ended."

Conveniently, a delay so near the end of the House term would have caused the vote to be taken up in the next session – when the newly elected House membership would be seated with more Democratic representation, thereby improving Clinton’s chances of dodging impeachment.

The Republicans did, in fact, agree to delay the hearings, but only for a day or two. Amazingly, Clinton ended the bombing raid after only 70 hours -- once it became clear that in spite of the brief delay, the vote would still be held in the current session.

Once the bombing stopped, Clinton touted the effectiveness and importance of the mission. As reported by ABC News : “We have inflicted significant damage on Saddam's weapons of mass destruction programs, on the command structures that direct and protect that capability, and on his military and security infrastructure,” he said. Defense secretary William Cohen echoed the point: “We estimate that Saddam's missile program has been set back by at least a year."

[xzins]

Although I give Rove a lot of credit, I don’t let GW Bush off the hook. I don’t think he’s unintelligent or out of touch. He knew that silence was costing him, his party, his base.

So, he either did this intentionally or unintentionally. If intentionally, he knew it and rode this all the way to the ground with Rove, 2 mad Strangelove cowboys riding that bomb to destruction. If unintentionally, the only explanation would be naively thinking the silence strategy would work.

Of course, there is always the conspiracy theory route. Bush and Rove intentionally destroyed any chance that anyone would defeat the democrats in the next election cycle. Why? Because a greater conspiracy is actually running things.

[skeeter]

Time will tell that Karl Rove was an unmitigated disaster for this country.

[longfellow]

A dumbass lib that I have to work with who will take any opposite position I take even ones that I pretend to believe actually defended Rove yesterday.

His position, Rove was a genius that got Bush elected twice even after the whole illegal war.

I don’t even argue that point anymore.
The fact that Saddam helped the 9/11 terrorists, and paid terrorists familiesand wasn’t there an airplane he let them train on?

Anyone want to help me destroy this moron just send me a list.

[arthurus]

Perhaps Karl Rove’s wealth is dependent on the Democrats somehow? He acts like a Democrat operative. His efforts benefit Democrats and their Republican sycophants.

[FreeAtlanta]

Maybe Rove and the “Republican consultant class” are just more left-wing plants. A fifth column that weakens the Republican conservative movement through sabotage.

[abclily]

Hopefully, it leaves a mark on Fox News. I am soooo sick of Fox News putting the stammering, sputtering Karl Rove on as a spokesman for ANYTHING! Karl sounds like a Democrat mole in the Republican Party.

[zeugma]

BFLR

[samtheman]

Is Karl Rove a superman? Does he have some kind of telepathic super-power that enabled him to take over the Bush administration?

He was chosen by Bush, kept in power by Bush, listened to by Bush and completely respected by Bush. Bush looked at Karl Rove and liked everything he saw and heard. You can’t really blame that on Karl Rove.

And what about the other people around Bush? What significant voices were there in the Bush administration arguing against Rove’s brand of Republicanism?

And what about today? Why is Rove still in the public arena today? Does he have an army of thugs in the background forcing the news media to continue to give him a voice and forcing Republicans everywhere to heed his words?

Who and what is Karl Rove? He is no superman. He has no super-powers. He commands no army of thugs.

Karl Rove is the quintessential Chamber of Congress Republican. He is the face and voice and soul of Chamber of Commerce Republicanism. He was powerful in the Bush administration because that administration was a regime of Chamber of Commerce Republicans. Rove remains influential today because Chamber of Commerce Republicans are running the Republican Party today.

Chamber of Commerce Republicans only care about business health in the most narrow sense of the word. What are this quarter’s sales figures? What is next quarter’s sales forecast?

No need for political principles. No need for political concepts of any kind. And above all DO NOT EXPRESS ANY POLITICAL OPINIONS.

Political opinions hurt sales. By all means DO NOT OFFEND ANYONE (with the obvious exception of conservatives). This is the creed of the Chamber of Commerce Republican, and Karl Rove is their prophet.

Please don’t mistake me for someone who is anti-business. On the contrary, I believe that economic freedom translates directly into personal Liberty.

But I do not believe Chamber of Commerce of Republicans know anything about Liberty or America. And I do not believe they are at all equipped to take on the party of Marx and Alinsky.

It’s interesting that the posted article mentions McCain and Romney as two who suffered the consequences of Rove’s destruction of the Republican Party. Well, there are a lot of would-be Roves out there and McCain and Romney are two of them.

[x]

Santorum on Thursday stood by that claim. “There was no active chemical-weapons operation in Iraq—that doesn’t mean there were no chemical weapons,” he said. “That was the point we were making. It’s clear from The New York Times’ article that the military as well as the administration didn’t want to have that conversation because they missed it.”

Go to war over a weapons program. There was no ongoing weapons program. Is that really something you want to keep reminding the public about?

It's a little strange, too, that somebody who was reporting about gas shells found in Iraq in 2006 is now telling us that Rove squashed the story at about that time. Short memory about what you wrote yourself, Eli? Is it really up to the White House to do the reporters' job for them?