Another Perspective
The Man Who Elected Barack Obama
Why didn’t Karl Rove speak out sooner?
When I served as a Senior Speechwriter in George W. Bush’s White House, Karl Rove was the bane of my existence. The rule was that no speech could ever go to the President without its first being reviewed by Mr. Rove, and since Karl was an extremely busy man, he often didn’t call in his comments to the Speechwriting Office till eight or nine in the evening. By the time these comments reached me, they often seemed hopelessly cryptic and unintelligible, yet somehow I had to figure out a way to work them into my draft without offending all the other big-shots whose comments I had previously incorporated…And all the while, of course, the President was waiting for his speech.
But despite the grief he caused me, I am one of Karl Rove’s biggest fans. Karl is a truly nice man — modest, personable, and extremely approachable — yet you couldn’t spend more than five minutes with him without recognizing that you were in the presence of a towering intellect. But having just read his memoir, Courage and Consequence, I am forced to conclude that Rove, perhaps more than anyone else, was responsible for the election of Barack Obama in 2008.
Let me recount a bit of personal history by way of background. About four years ago, around the time when Democrats were heatedly charging that Bush had “lied” about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction in order to build a case for war (after all, they argued, if the weapons had existed, why weren’t we able to find them after liberating Iraq?), I was having lunch with Dr. Laurie Mylroie, one of America’s leading students of terrorism in general, and Iraqi terrorism in particular. Laurie was beside herself with anger. Why wasn’t the Bush administration citing Gen. James Clapper, the Director of the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, who said that satellite imagery proved conclusively that shortly before the war’s outbreak, Iraq had transferred its weapons of mass destruction to Syria? Why wasn’t it quoting Gen. Georges Sada, deputy chief of Saddam’s air force, or Gen. Moshe Ya’alon, Israel’s chief-of-staff, both of whom also claimed that Saddam’s weapons had been transferred to Syria? Why was it so tongue-tied, so unsure of itself, so unwilling to answer its critics? Didn’t anybody in the White House realize that if the Democrats’ charges went unanswered, they would fatally undermine the entire case for the war?
By this time, however, I had left the White House, so I had to tell Laurie the truth: Her revelations about Generals Clapper and Sada (though not Ya’alon) were news to me, and I had no idea why the White House wasn’t citing them.
Given this background, readers will understand the mixed feelings with which I reacted to Karl Rove’s assertion, in a chapter entitled “Bush Was Right on Iraq,” that Clapper, Sada and Ya’alon all maintained that Saddam had transferred his weapons of mass destruction to Syria on the eve of the war. On the one hand, I recalled the old saw, “Better late than never.” On the other hand, I couldn’t help feeling that history might have turned out differently had Karl spoken out sooner.
To his immense credit, Karl makes no effort to deny that he screwed up, big time. “So who was responsible for the failure to respond [to the Democrats’ assault]?” he asks. “I was. I should have stepped forward, rung the warning bell, and pressed for full-scale response. I didn’t. Preoccupied with the coming campaign and the pressures of the daily schedule in the West Wing, I did not see how damaging this assault was. There were others who could have sounded the alarm, but regardless, I should have.”
Rove goes on to call the Democrats’ claim that Bush lied about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction a “poison-tipped dagger aimed at the heart of the Bush presidency,” and notes that “by July 2005 a majority of Americans — 51 percent — believed that Bush had deliberately misled them.”
This number is quite close to the 52 percent of Americans who voted for Obama in 2008. Maybe that’s just a coincidence — but I doubt it. It seems to me that after full allowance is made for the nefarious activities of ACORNs, RINOs, and other assorted villains of the 2008 campaign, the fact remains that on the most crucial issue facing any president — the issue of war and peace — a majority of Americans believed that GeorgeW. Bush lied to them. Since he was leaving office, they couldn’t punish Bush directly for this unforgivable sin, so they punished the Republican Party by voting for Obama. To the extent that Karl Rove — one of the finest, ablest, most decent public servants I have ever encountered — might have prevented all this from happening by responding more forcefully to the Democrats’ blood libel, he is responsible for the election of Barack Hussein Obama to the presidency of the United States.
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drudge ette obama| 4.5.10 @ 6:50AM
I don't think it would have mattered. Laurie Mylroie has been around since the Clinton Adminstration and few in the American press have interviewed her. I once saw her speak on t.v. - I think it was a book review session on CSPAN. An Islamic fanatic was very antagonistic to her. It didn't thwart her. She needs to come back and help set the record straight, but I bet she has some security concerns.
Karl Rove is all that you say about him - why he is the subject of hatred has always amazed me. He's extremely talented. Fact is, no matter what Rove could have said, the American press has let us all down by not reporting widely accurate news. The American press elected Obama.
loulou| 4.5.10 @ 9:15AM
I too have seen Mylroie on CSPAN. Too bad Rove and Bush didn't have her backbone and clarity.
I don't understand why the left hates Rove/Bush so much. They're not so far apart.
Eric Cartman| 4.5.10 @ 9:36AM
You're right when you say the press elected Obama - but everyone knew they would help no matter who the scumbag Democrats put up. Could have been Saddam, didn't matter. Bush and Rove knew this - they didn't care. Bush stabbed us in the back with his amnesty bill, arrogantly saying "see ya at the signing" when questioned about it. Bush/Rove had no use for conservatives and we should have no use for either of them. They are both apparatchik Republicans only interested in their own vainglory. Shun them, turn your backs, do not listed, or you too will end up talking like this: "I've abandoned free market principles to save the free market system."
Alan Brooks| 4.5.10 @ 12:56PM
I read his book, it had nothing new to say. Why do you glorify this talented hack Rove (yes, you can be talented and still be a hack)? Baker, too-- who had the audacity (i.e. gall) to float his name as a possible candidate for POTUS.
If you don't want the trouble of setting up a 3rd party that attempts to CONSERVE something, besides inflated GOP ego, then you will lose elections over and over. The demographics have changed, and all the hispanic-smarming in Texas and elsewhere wont cut it.
Lavaux| 4.6.10 @ 3:00AM
I think Mr. Brooks spotted how Republicans will screw up their chances in November and beyond.
What we voters want to know is, Will the GOP use the power we give them to set America aright, or will they use power we give them to stay in power and screw America? If the GOP answer is the latter, which was got them in trouble last time they governed, then they'll turn enough voters off to scupper their chances at retaking the Congress in November. However, if the answer is the former and they act like they'll follow through, then it'd be worthwhile to actively support them. I have my own doubts what the GOP answer will be and whether they'll follow through. Either way, the doubt demonstrates the GOP's most glaring flaw: Concentrating too much on winning political horseraces at the expense of governing well according to sound conservative principles.
megapotamus | 4.5.10 @ 3:13PM
The lack of pushback represents a serious act of political malpractice but Rove is no more guilty than Bush. It seems obvious that the thinking was, much like with Obamacare, that time would heal these wounds to the benefit of the Bushies. May Barack be as mistaken as Karl. But an important question cries out to be addressed; just what is the source of the anti-Rovism out there? It is a lingering mystery especially as it is nearly as pervasive on the non-Republican Right as it is on the Left. Have you found this baffling? Following is the non-event that comprises Karl Rove's Original Sin:
You will recall that the 2000 primaries were quite hotly contested. Bush was not the favorite. Like in 2008, McCain was the perceived frontrunner his centrist creds being a drag in the primaries but expected to be a benefit in the general, which was probably true. Coming through the arc of the primary season the South Carolina primary loomed large in deciding the momentum, sound familiar? Well, there were some complaints, in the press and elsewhere, that there was a nefarious push-poll going about in SC that asked the tendentious question, just what do you think about McCain's mixed race illegitimate daughter? Of course there is no such creature, McCain has an adopted daughter of Indian extraction who was often out there on the hustings with them so this vicious action was patently racist, mendacious and unfair; not coincidentally these are the slanders cast at the Right generally with abandon. So who could be responsible? Qui buono? Bush would be the beneficiary and Rove as his hatchetman was the presumptive perp. But a speedbump emerges: the LAT from the Left and Byron York from the Right each tried to substantiate this event and could not. This robo-call that supposedly was being professionally broadcast across the land could not be found on a single answering machine or other recording device. Even more damningly, neither player could find a single person to go on the record to claim they had heard the call first hand. Not a single person. It is only fair to conclude that this event is an urban legend. Like the phantom spitting on the mall, it never happened. That, naturally, was never reported with anything like the vigor of the original charge which, it should be said, was endorsed by McCain with no foundation. If you have ever wondered why a few Righties will often enthusiastically denounce this corpulent statistician as the next cousin of the devil, this is why although they probably do not know it. The Lefties need no excuse but at the root of it this is why Rove is much more reviled than a figure like Begala or say, Andy Card. In short, anti-Rovism is based on a lie. One would have hoped that this experience might make him less apt to let a lie go uncorrected but it seems that, in the short term at least, he learned the opposite and false lesson.
Alan Brooks| 4.5.10 @ 8:05PM
"just what is the source of the anti-Rovism out there?"
Megapotamus, I know you're a good guy (and your handle is good, too) but please understand that I wasn't seriously anti-Rove until I read his book.
a mom| 4.6.10 @ 11:16AM
Wow, thank you for this info! That story had always sickened me; it disturbed me that someone I truly did respect, George W. Bush, would have permitted something as underhanded as that kind of push-poll. But I had never heard that there was zero evidence it ever happened. Unbelievable. Again, thank you for putting this to rest, for me at least.
I always wondered, too, why the hell the Bush admin didn't fight back on the issue of WMD. I chalked it up to Bush's Christian humility (for proof of that, look at his silence and invisibility since leaving office; no criticism of Obama coming from him, even as Obama destroys the country, one leftist step at a time). But now I see it was purely a terrible political mistake.
What a terrible shame.
Stephen S| 4.8.10 @ 4:51PM
Why is it "strategists" always insist that the GOP candidate must have "centrist creds"? That's something Dems need because the far left kook fringe where most of them live is scary as hell for the rest of us. Conservatives with courage and integrity are what motivate the GOP base. Duh. Hello. History? Anybody? Check your RINO worldview at the door if you want to sync yourself with reality, Meg.
serfer62 | 4.5.10 @ 5:35PM
I distinctly remember that prior to the war the annoucement on the news of truck convoys leaving known nuc sites moving to Syria.
Why did powell announce this at the UN?
Rocco| 4.6.10 @ 8:28AM
As a retired intel officer, I saw all of that at the time and was aghast that the President did not use the imagery to bolster his case, like JFK did with the Cuban Missile Crisis. Back then, I thought that if Bush and his staff did not defend themselves, his presidency was doomed. And, so it was. We are living with the consequences of such stupidity and cowardice.
SeattleBruce| 4.5.10 @ 8:41PM
"Karl Rove is all that you say about him - why he is the subject of hatred has always amazed me. "
RATS will be RATS...it's all part of the grand scheme of thing...doesn't matter who gets in the way of the socialist revolution.
Gregory L. Jackson, PhD| 4.5.10 @ 10:44PM
Shattan has shocked me. I knew about the weapons being moved, and I am just an ordinary citizen who reads a lot on the Internet news sites. The entire Bush administration was arrogant, so the blame does not belong to Rove alone. The President should have articulated the reasons behind his decisions, but he never bothered. RINOs think they can appease the Left by being nice to them. It did not work for Nixon, Ford, or either Bush. Reagan was very nice to everyone but he articulated the reasons behind his decisions.
jt007| 4.6.10 @ 2:50AM
I agree with Mr. Jackson. I voted for George W. Bush twice and volunteered for him in 2000. He thought that as long as he remained above the political fray and wore a coat and tie to the oval office everyday, that Democrats would magically respect him and play fair. What a joke. He couldn't have been bothered to respond to the Democrats' lies and he allowed them to fester for weeks on end before he would offer a tepid response and an implicit admission by offering a remedial policy or mea culpa (e.g. the "16 words" in the State of the Union Address).
I think Karl Rove is the most overrated political hack in my lifetime. Bush screwed up the 2000 campaign at the end by not campaigning hard in Florida and they screwed up by not airing the DUI a couple of years before the election. In 2004, we were at war and Bush barely beat a d**@# bag like John Kerrey. Rove was horrible. Also, why didn't Rove realize that the administration had found the one person in the entire country who was less articulate than Bush (i.e. Scott McClellan) and appointed him the White House press secretary at the most crucial juncture of the nation building in Iraq. I kept wondering if they had a secret strategy that I couldn't figure out. It turns out that they didn't; they just screwed that up like so many other things and then McClellan turned out to be a turncoat. Bush was about as good a judge of character with McClellan as he was with Putin and Ted Kennedy. Bush and Rove are directly responsible for ruining the Republican brand and they are the reason that we have this socialist as a president.
Richard White| 4.8.10 @ 10:03AM
Since I don't know Karl Rove, I'm not qualified to remark on his character; it seems that the author's assessment of his intelligence and talent are justified. However, I am very skeptical of his approach to both campaigns and policy in general. It seems to me that far too many such people, when in positions like Rove's, seeing an opportunity to apply that intellect, over-analyze and over-strategize. For some reason, they treat statesmanship and policy creation like a game (OK, in a certain respect it is exactly like a game) and ignore both principle and plain facts.
Conservatives in this country outnumber liberals by two-to-one and have done so for a very long time -- in fact, this is probably the lowest ratio in our history. Had Rove seized on that one fact and had the courage to exploit it, GW not only would have won by landslide in both elections, but would have been far more aggressive with foreign policy, spending cuts and policy measures that would have left us in a much better condition economically and otherwise. Unfortunately, they both showed all the marks of business-as-usual politicians with no real commitment to conservative ideals and principles and, therefore, no courage to pursue them.
Carol| 4.5.10 @ 6:59AM
Maybe but there were other factors.
A dumbed down electorate. A cool black guy. The deranged leftist media. A dumbed down electorate. Marxist professors who railed against Bush and America. The cool black guy was giving hints along the way - the one that stands out the most - "Spreading the Wealth" is good for everyone as he said to Joe the Plumber and most didn't pay attention. A dumbed down electorate.
Rove maybe could have given some cover for Bush and the WMDs but the stone had been cast in lots of people's minds and they were going to vote for the Democrats no matter what.
And I will close with a dumbed down electorate.
SchnauzerChef| 4.5.10 @ 7:35AM
After years as a private chef and a sort of 'bubble-isolated' existance; I find myself in a new field, small business owner and in retail. Carol - you are exactly correct. I am stunned at what I see from potential employees to unbelieveably self centered, blinders on, insular customer base. The changie/hopey didn't happen on one election day.
Miriam| 4.5.10 @ 8:37AM
I second that a dumbed down electorate.
Nate W.| 4.5.10 @ 11:34AM
"A dumbed down electorate" is too simplistic.
I believe there to have been three main types of Obama voters in '08:
1 - Those who genuinely wanted change from much of Bush's Big Govt policies and (as Shattan pointed out) the perceived nation-building in Iraq.
2 - Those who (as described by SchnauzerChef) are pretty self-absorbed (easy to confuse with stupid) and want to know what govt can do for them. ("Obama gonna pay my gas and mortgage!" - Peggy Joseph)
3 - Those who want America to resemble something akin to a socialistic, elitist, European nation. (The view of "smart", progressive profs)
Short-answer solution? Let's get back to the type of conservatism which proclaims the unique mandate of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness", and doesn't claim govt to be the answer to our problems.
megapotamus | 4.5.10 @ 3:20PM
Yes Nate, your Point 1 describes well these chimerical "Obamacons". Repulsed by the collectivist attitudes of the Bushies (which Rove largely constructed for electoral reasons... "Architect" indeed) many did think that Not Bush was the prescription for Bush. We may denounce this as foolishness but it is a good demonstration of the dialectic; how thesis produces anti-thesis and spawns synthesis. This is the iron rule of electoral politics, being a binary exercise. The supposed genius Rove falls down on this point often. He is the quintissential gunslinger. He is not quite out to bid regardless of ideology but he is enough of the chameleon to play this toxic game of triangulation that splits the middle of the polls, somehow always trending Left.
Radegunda| 4.6.10 @ 2:34AM
There are also the conservatives in good standing who thought a flaming Marxist as president was preferable to the squishy, unreliable McCain, because "Reagan followed Carter." Ergo ... what?
Some of those people are still confident that the awakening and pushback we're seeing among the electorate will usher in Reagan v. 2 right on schedule. I think they gave too little thought to how much damage could be done meanwhile, including messing with the Census and the media and future elections.
Alan Brooks| 4.5.10 @ 1:01PM
It is enraging that after five elections since Reagan left office, you think we are such chumps to want to vote for Doles and McCains, and Bushes, and is Rove really thinking of running in 2012?
Then fuck Rove in his fat little porcine mouth. You have no respect for us? then we will show you no respect.
Always Question| 4.5.10 @ 2:40PM
What a well crafted, carefully measured comment. Do you think comments like this will garner respect? They simply underline the crass nature of your ilk.
megapotamus | 4.5.10 @ 3:22PM
Eh, I do not endorse the sexualized imagery especially but I understand the sentiment. Civil respect is, I think, collateral damage in the current conflicts and I don't mind some blowback even on the head of old Piglet.
loulou| 4.5.10 @ 5:01PM
Alan Brooks was a well crafted, carefully measured comment. You have a problem with it, you fastidious little pixie?
Margie| 4.5.10 @ 5:39PM
Alan Brooks claimed he will vote for Obama. Anything he has to say about the Republican party? As if he cares.
Alan Brooks| 4.5.10 @ 7:51PM
Margie! The GOP is a party and a business, the GOP is not conservatism. I explained that IMO the GOP is now the greatest enemy of conservatism. THat does NOT mean there is no hope for conservatism on the macro-scale, but there is IMO no hope for conservatism on a large scale; and there is no hope for the GOP as a conservative party.
The GOP doesn't respect us, and I have no respect for the GOP. megapotamus is right to call Rove a piglet. I read his book, it is fluff, a ghostwritten Bush-promoting puff-piece...
and since Rove looks like a little swine, he ought to be treated like one.
Alan Brooks| 4.5.10 @ 7:54PM
I wrote, "that doesn't there is no hope for conservatism on the macro scale"
I meant micro. You can live a conservative life with your family, but outside of a house of worship, you are on your own. As with the police, you can't have friends protect your family all the time.
Alan Brooks| 4.5.10 @ 7:57PM
"Always Question| 4.5.10 @ 2:40PM"
Always Question? just as you will, I will.
Cpm| 4.5.10 @ 8:56PM
Hey Bright Boy, you left out the many more numerous chumps that voted for Obama. That's just an inexplicable political phenomena.
Chalkdust| 4.5.10 @ 2:05PM
public school teachers pro-active unions + dumbed-down electorate = parents who willingly give their kids up for indoctrination to beget another generation of dumbed-down electorate.
Margie| 4.5.10 @ 5:37PM
A dumbed down electorate....and ACORN.
Bo| 4.6.10 @ 6:41AM
I dare say that those believing liberal ideas are intellectually lazy. Understanding the virtues of liberty and freedom are much more difficult for most people to grasp than a simple "Hey, let's all vote for the cool black guy. He'll take money from those that have too much and give us free stuff."
John| 4.6.10 @ 7:33PM
When Obama told Joe the Plumber that he wanted to "spread the wealth", we just could not, at that moment, realize that he meant ALL of it.
NVA Patriot| 4.5.10 @ 7:01AM
Great Article
I have heard Rove in interviews along with other 'establishment' Republicans. IMHO the reason Rove and others did not sound the alarm is that they did not understand the game being played. They assume that the Democrats would not beat this drum because *everybody* said and understood Sadam's threat. The Dem senators and presidential candidates said so. The left wing media said so. Bush said so. Afterall we're all on the same foreign policy team right? Protect America and America's liberty - right?
That is the mistake. The Democrats play a different game - their lust for total control and power combined with the win by any means mentality makes them the greatest threat to America's liberty since the threat of WWII. Democrat Healthcare, Democrat controlled EPA, Democrat controlled education all, when taken together are threats to Liberty. The mask is off. The game is socialist servitude or liberty in America. There is no compromise position. You either want to be free and will stop the socialists or you don't. Establishment Republicans don't see the world in those terms so they don't see their 'friends across the aisle' as threats. They don't live with the consequences. We do. It's our fight. We have to win for our children's sake.
brewpop| 4.5.10 @ 7:41AM
Patriot, you are dead on target. The passing of ObamaCare is the latest great example of how Democrats operate. They are sly, devious and bear watching at all times. I think I hear the sound of boots of change marching to the polls in November. Next? Term limits for representatives and senators.
Grzmlyk| 4.5.10 @ 9:36AM
If Rove and the Bushies did not know the game being played, then they had no right to be at the levers and switches of power. And how smart can Rove really be? That's like a talented football player rising all the way to the NFL and expressing shock! Shock! that it's a contact sport!!
Come on. Everybody knew the game that was being played and has been played ever since Whitaker Chambers was demonized by the Dems and the media (sound familiar?) for correctly pointing out that we had communists in high positions of power in our government. Namely one Alger Hiss.
I watched the Bush Administration fail to defend itself on this and myriad other, lesser issues, with utter dismay. Why the hell are they sitting on their hands, I screamed nightly at the TV. They never seriously defended the decision to go into Iraq; the willingly allowed the media and the Democrat Party to define the terms of the debate - AS THEY ALWAYS HAVE DONE AND ALWAYS WILL DO.
It is unforgiveable.
Look at how Bush himself refused to pardon Scooter Libby after that unbelieveably huge sand-castle-in-air the dems created out of wholecloth. Gimme a break! Defusing that whole Valerie Plame brouhaha should have been like shooting fish in a barrel. And that, too, was directly related to the administration's distate for defending itself. And after Colin Powell officially went off the reservation, there was silence.
This just goes to the entire GOP's tendency to play nice even as opponents of freedom cheat, lie, steal, bribe, demonize and destroy their way into power.
You're damned right Rove is responsible for electing Obama. Rove and Bush himself.
Eric Cartman| 4.5.10 @ 9:44AM
I just can't think of anything to add!
darcy| 4.5.10 @ 2:36PM
I can add something.
Given that Bush was not the conservative/traditionalist he sold himself as, e.g., the prescription drug entitlement, the amnesty push, no child left behind -- all of which were attempts to expand central power -- I don't believe he understood or could discern the extent to which the Left was (and is) so blatantly contemptuous of and purposefully destructive to our constitutional liberty.
Therefore, he didn't understand the danger inherent in permitting the Left to use the lie about WMD in trashing the Republican brand nor to what extent the Leftist media would go to discredit his administration. Since Bush must have remembered the democrat calls in the 90's for Iraqi regime change, perhaps he believed the media spin was all bluster and not part of the larger plan to cement a democrat win in 2008 that it was. But no matter that, since Bush himself is part of the Republican establishment; to him a democrat win is merely a passing of the baton rather than another nail in the coffin of our liberty that it actually is. (Although with est. repubs we get the same result, don't we?)
Had he understood the threat to the nation that progressivism entails, had he been less a progressive himself, he could not have underestimated the need to defend his Iraq policy with the facts surrounding the WMD/Syrian link. Failure to defend it would necessarily be an arrow in the progressives' quiver, as indeed it proved to be.
Then too, he could also have been psychologically willing to incur the abusive media because of some latent guilt over the wisdom and merit of the Iraqi war, lingering doubts that hindered his defense of it.
Bush seemed to have recognized threats to our nation foreign, but not domestic.
Stephen S| 4.8.10 @ 5:10PM
I wouldn't say that I know him well but I have chatted on the 18th green with him and waved to his dad across the Secret Service vehicles parked in his drive on occasion... I'd say that Jr. was and is more committed to conservative ideals in his heart than his dad. But his dad and his dad's buddies at the club put him in office and pretty much staffed his cabinet with a few exceptions (Condy, for one). I think W. (I use the moniker with deep affection) could be accused of naiveté more legitimately than dumbness or malevolence. He's a more happy-go-lucky soul than either of his parents. He's more essentially American too I think in that regard. Optimistic. He doesn't worry too much about the Left because he has (or had) an almost Reaganesque confidence in the down home common sense of the American people and in the capacity of the Left for self-destruction by headlong plunge into absurdity. But you're right that the Left is like the Devil or Shelob in how they spin their sneaky slimy webs and wait and wait and wait, nasty, beady little eyes glowing and gleaming in their dark evil corner.
Simon Templar| 4.5.10 @ 10:05AM
I too sat there nightly for years yelling at the TV and turned to my wife the night Bush first mentioned WMD and said, "that was a mistake, if they do not find them after the invasion, the dems will drop kick that up his a$$ for the next 4 years". Odd thing is, they were actually 14 solid reason for the Iraq war that are outlined by David Horowitz in one of his books that will never be known by the public. As far as explaining and communicating policy to the american public those years, Rove and all were complete failures.
Grzmlyk| 4.5.10 @ 10:35AM
Simon, you were smarter than I was - I thought they would find incontrovertible evidence for sure, what with the elaborateness of Colin Powell's presentation to the UN.
I'll check out Horowtiz's reasons - I felt the 17 ignored UN resolutions was reason enough myself. One thing that whole farce proved - again - is the utter fecklessness of the UN (when it's not stealing billions of US dollars, advancing one-worldism or cutting America down to size, that is).
I think Rove was a useful wonk who maybe grasped the arcana of election machinery, but I cannot find a word strong enough to adequately convy my disgust with how poorly the administration defended itself across all fronts (not to mention the stuff that was indefensible, like letting Ted Kennedy write the education bill).
But the last straw for me was the entire Valerie Plame episode, culminating in Bush's abject acquiescence to the left's version of reality. Indeed, not pardoning Libby was unconscionable (not to mention inexplicable). Honestly, I can't forgive Bush for that.
The fact is, "Bush lied, people died" is now de facto "history." My stomach isn't strong enough to look at today's elementary school textbooks, but I'm sure the left's mendacity is now enshrined in print for our children, who, after all, must learn that whenever America takes up arms, it is to impose imperial tyranny, oppression, death and misery onto pitiable third-world victims.
Eric Cartman| 4.5.10 @ 10:52AM
Can you imagine Reagan sitting there taking crap like that from the Lefty aholes of America? The Bush WH silence was the disconnect in this scenario. The public would listen to the Lefty garbage and then, like a tennis match, turn their head to see the return volley from Bush and . . . . nothing. Crickets chirping. Ball boy biting his nails in the corner. They counted on people like Rush to fill this void. Remember when Rush said he quit - he refused to do any more heavy lifting? The Republicans (Bush/Rove) were carrying the pillows to the truck and Rush was stuck with the grand pianos and hide-a-beds. It was pathetic. I hate to say this, but I have come to really hate both Bush and Rove for what seems like aiding and abetting the kidnapping of our country. Jerks.
Grzmlyk| 4.5.10 @ 11:14AM
You know, Eric, I agree with you. I see Rove up there on Fox all the time and, even though his commentary is sometimes useful (like Dick Morris, I take it all with a grain of salt), I can't help feeling tremendous anger every time I look into his eyes.
Like this crazy woman I dated once, I just look at him and think, what the hell do you SEE when you wake up in the morning?
I do remember Rush saying that he was fed up. As usual, Rush was right on the money. I swear, with wobbly pundits on the right, Rush is the only guy who gets it right 100 percent of the time (or very close).
I really would like to know what possessed Bush to let Libby's conviction slide. I know that was the last straw for Dick Cheney as well. And I will say that Karen Hughes, who was Bush's PR person going all the way back to his early Texas days, always had her head so far up her ass that she never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity to set the record straight and gain a little factual traction.
The whole administration's posture vis a vis its critics was inexplicable. And now we have an ignorant thug playing banana republic dictator while using the Constitution as toilet paper - and laughing at all of us as he does so; not just the "tea baggers," but even the pundits who so obsequiously kiss his ass daily. He's laughing at them too.
Yes, while folks like Hannity (don't get me started) always say that history will be kind to Bush, I think otherwise - even if going into Iraq turns out to be a net positive years down the road.
Eric Cartman| 4.5.10 @ 11:47AM
I know, ya grit your teeth to the point of breaking them. To have him sit there and want absolution for "screwing up" makes your head spin! Libby did absolutely nothing wrong and get's the Bush middle finger of friendship - just like Bush did to us, the people who voted for him.
I would like to know why Bush unleashed the dogs of war, only to replace them with the poodles of peace and the gnats of nation building after only a couple of months. The war should have been total until complete victory, until a surrender signed by an Iraqi general televised to the world. To dismantle the army and civilian structure was just too stupid for words.
History won't be kind to Bush no matter what Hannity (don't get me started, either) says. It will report that Bush pissed away support due to bumbling and incompetence - not to mention a lack of a solid belief in anything . I truly think Bush was a finger wetter. He certainly wasn't a Reaganite, with core, conservative beliefs (although both Rove and Bush knew they had to run as one.) Jerks.
Grzmlyk| 4.5.10 @ 12:06PM
Man, Eric, you and I are on the same page.
I know generals always fight the last war, but do they always have to be so impervious to overwhelming evidence that they're down the wrong path?
Remember Shock and Awe? All the big talk that was part of the build-up? It was ridiculous. Yeah, Shock and Awe was great TV for a day or two (though, to be honest, it was neither shocking nor awe-inspiring), but its execution had NOTHING whatsoever to do with the actual war that followed.
It seems like every night I was shouting at the TV, "If you take a village, hang the fuck onto it, don't move on and let insurgents just pick up where they left off!!!!"
I will cut the administration a tiny bit of slack because I do think each war is different, and because I'm certainly no military expert - contrary to my instincts, apparently the era of winning hearts and minds through the exercise of "soft power" is here to stay - but why the hell did it take them the better part of a decade to figure out that playing patty cake with the enemy does nothing? It was infuriating.
I recently saw the great John Ford western, "My Darling Clementine" again. Walter Brennan plays the evil Old Man Clanton, and he chastises his son, whom he is teaching to be as evil as he is, for not killing Henry Fonda (Wyatt Earp) after a barroom confrontation. The son had pulled a gun and aimed it at Fonda, but Fonda was quick and shot the revolver out of the younger Clanton's hand. Fonda walked out of the bar unscathed.
As he is literally whipping the boy, Brennan shouts, "How many times do I have to tell you? If you pull a gun, kill a man!"
That's how I feel about war. If you take up arms against a country, win the friggin war.
Eric Cartman| 4.5.10 @ 1:10PM
Yeah, Shock and Awe was neither LOL. Some tactical and strategic value, but you're right. Good TV! I remember learning that a platoon from I think the USA 23rd Infantry discovered a large arms depot intact and were ordered to abandon it to press on- not even a squad to guard it. WTF! I thought. This is a disastrous move. Sure enough, the place was emptied out. Future IEDs. Things like that completely irritated me. The US should have went with more troops. THAT was a big mistake. McCain was right on that one. Bush came in wanting to make the DoD more efficient and hired Rummy to do it. Good goal - in peace time. Bad move when you are going to war. It was things like this that started me getting mad a Bush.
Grzmlyk| 4.5.10 @ 1:58PM
Yeah, I admired Rummy initially, but could only conclude after a year or so that he was incompetent in the prosecution of a war he didn't understand.
I believe I do recall that depot find - and the US decision to move on. I agree, WTF? Unbelieveable.
Even the Powell doctrine - before the libs started to flatter his vanity - was to go in with overwhelming force. And I totally agree. You can't fight a war on the cheap. Yes, you are putting more Amercians in harm's way, but reliance on technology and a strategy of hop-scotching across a country with a skeleton crew - as opposed to taking and holding it with overwhelming force - is utterly foolhardy.
Besides, had we gone in there with a serious intent to win, we might not have lost over 4,000 soldiers. And a quick victory wouldn't have subjected the administration to such a relentless barrage of corrosive vitriol in the press.
I'll admit I'm not sure all that was possible - war has indeed become much trickier in the modern era, what with no clear front lines, the good and bad guys commingling, etc. But you'd think Viet Nam would have taught us a few things.
Eric Cartman| 4.5.10 @ 2:17PM
Oh, I know! A quick, brutal war that ends with a clear win is much better than the protracted, drip, drip, drip, year after year war we got.
I think Rummy tried to prove the leaner, meaner Army theory while fighting. Trying to implement the reduction-in-force plan while running an unexpected war was very corrosive.
I lost respect for Powell after I found out he supported the decision to NOT support the Iraqis in their fight after the First Gulf War. He was one of the people who wanted to leave Saddam in power to balance Iran. How's that working out for us, now?
Grzmlyk| 4.5.10 @ 2:48PM
GREAT point about Powell.
But I guess my turning point on him - which should have been after the stance you referred to - was his vain and unseemly encouragement of both parties courting him to run for president right after the war.
He preened like a classic liberal. And of course the more I heard from him, the less I liked him, until I found him to be an odious example of why our military isn't what it once was.
I thought it might have been politically astute of Bush to make him Secy of State, but I was very nervous about his appointment. I must say, I was pleasantly surprised by his trip to the UN in support of the second war, but he made up for that with his constant harping after he thought he'd been made a fool of.
I wonder if he weren't black how far up the ladder he'd have gone? Another affirmative action success story!
Eric Cartman| 4.5.10 @ 4:00PM
Good question. Powell was a good general, I hear, but a better politician. I remember a major in the AF saying one time (about who I can't remember) "There is no better politician than a general" .
I think he would have gone a long way, regardless- he's smart, is troop oriented and knows warfare. But his ancestry helped a lot, I'm sure - which I don't begrudge him since he was very qualified.
RAMIII| 4.5.10 @ 12:33PM
I can't think of anything to add except this:
President Ronald Reagan set the bar so high that it exposes those Republicans who came after him as guys who are afraid to run up to the bar and even try to jump over!
And you all know what you would think of an athlete who refused to at least try in a competition!
canuckistani| 4.5.10 @ 12:56PM
Maybe Bush and Rove realised they had f-ed up the perception of the White House for a generation and that's why they checked out after year 6.
Bush went to war on a fantasy premise, has lost thousands of troops, injured 10's of thousands more for a mission that had no goal beyond removing Hussein. I would have liked to have been a fly on the wall in the Oval office when the lame-brained strategy was presented to him and what the "rewards" to America would be with a pacified Iraq.
The US has failed to secure additional oil contracts, Iran is now further uncontained, and Israel is playing "end-game" politics with their open desire for a Jerusalem capital to happen now.
The reformed alcoholic and born-again Bush accomplished nothing but wreckage in the economy, foreign policy and social policy. That's why they mentally and physically shut down after the '06 ass kicking. His legacy will not be met with kinder appraisals in years to come. His legacy is the price we paid for a lack of nuance and unchecked access to the Oval office by sinister forces. Rove is an apparent decent man that got himself involved with the wrong kind of people looking to settle scores unfinished by Bush 41. On the domestic front, Rove's culpability is clear in he enabled the venom left over from the Clinton impeachment to continue it with Swift-boating and throwing up the hate-baiting promise of a Constitutional marriage amendment. If we want to bitch about "tone" in the country, look no further than Karl Rove.
If cons want to have an enduring impact on the country, try to appeal to the better emotions in people, rather than this constant drum-beat of negativity around fear, anger, hate and mistrust that permeated the Bush white house about 30 seconds after 9/11 and continues today.
The dems are incompetents as well, but after Bush, they will give BO a chance, because he is not what they grew to hate in the last 8 years.
NVA Patriot| 4.5.10 @ 11:06AM
On the football analogy - Bush played a classy game of NFL ball. Unfortunately, the Dems played Prisoner Guard ball (the Longest Yard)against a poor NFL team, lots of defense - no offense - Redskins?
Our game is to now play like the prisoners we have become thanks to Obamacare. I think it's time a few necks are broken - metaphorically in the voting booth - No D's allowed near the treasury at any level of government. Don't just take out the top of the Pyramid - beat down the farm teams at the state and local levels. Never vote for a Dem AG. Never vote in a Dem council person. NEVER let a Dem on the School board.
Play our own Cloward-Piven strategy - minimize your witholding - no free loans to the government - file extensions - make the IRS do work when staff levels are low. Max your 401K even if it hurts - reduce your taxable income - starve the beast. Fill out the census forms - call your ethnicity American. Study the Dem party - remind everyone it was created for the express purpose of controlling people beginning with slavery - it was founded to perpetuate the institution of slavery - use that club to beat down every charge of racism. Never forget Margaret Sanger and her desire to use abortion to kill off the black race. These are some of the many ugly roots of the Dem party. We have to have the will of Patton, and the tactics of King - holding a mirror to the Dems letting them and the casually involved, see the liberty stealing Dems for what they are & what they started as.
In political terms - if you are a Dem or a progressive - you must be anihilated electorally - including RINOs like McCain, Cornyn, and Graham
Albert| 4.5.10 @ 11:15AM
Right on target. I could not have said it better myself. I've been watching politics since I was a child in the 1960's. I remember the Johnson election, Reagan's election as Governor of California, both Nixon elections, and on up to today. I noticed early on how the "press" favored Democrats and hammered Republicans. I saw it in all of the elections noted above and it has only gotten worse with time. Then I read about Alger Hiss and Nixon, and going even futher back, how the Press sold the American People on FDR. How can Rove be this "towering intellect" if he can not see what a 16 year old could easily recognize in the 1970's: that Democrats value winning above even national security? Rove either is an overated dunce, or he has severe tunnel vision. Of course the Democrats would use this "no WMD's" lie to advance their own political interests, even (especially!) at the expense of the safety of the American People! Democrats are non-patriotic, self interested, narcissistic political animals, modern versions of ancient Roman Senators and Consuls. That Rove could miss what is blatently obvious proves his incompetence. "W" said after the 2004 election that he had acquired a lot of "political capital" and he intended to use it. Under Rove's careful guidance, Bush used it up for virtually no politcal gain. Wasted. Nothing accomplished. Of course there is more to be gained than just sticking it to Democrats. By presenting the truth about WMD's, the Democrats illegitimate assault on Bush and the war effort would have been thwarted and the war could have been prosecuted with more vigor and less hesitance. A truly united USA war effort could have demoralized Iraqi insurgents and helped end resistance, bringing this continuing war to an earlier and more decisive end, and that means American lives. Lives lost over politics. Thanks, Karl.
canuckistani| 4.5.10 @ 1:23PM
Do you really believe a unified American public would have ended the insurgency faster? What evidence is there that any insurgents, anywhere, pay attention to the "tone" on the ground in the invading country?
The Iraq mission was failing because Bushies had no plan, conjured up BS from out of nowhere and sold it to us as a certainty. Generals were dismissed for challenging the zionist neocons and rummy's fantasy scenarios of palm-lined roads into Baghdad. Was that due to the American public's split on the issue?
Lack of material like armor and logistical support (which was supposed to be administered by Cheney's gang of thieves) had more to do with errors than the "tone" back here. The dismantling of the Iraq army and its structures was done by edict in the first days of our occupation, leaving young boys from every community in America acting as a local praetor with no language, diplomatic or governmental experience to draw on. Was that the "tone" back here in America or an incompetent cabal supporting a bewildered Bush?
The Bush incompetence killed thousands of troops and injured thousands more. Your inability to center your venom on the true cause of these senseless losses is your failing, not the "tone" or the perceptions of the people back home.
If you support our troops like I do, then you would have supported an impeachment trial for Bush putting our boys in harm's way based on lies, incompetence and utter mission failure.
Do you support increasing benefits to veterans? Do you support bringing back the draft when reserves are being called up to ensure troops are drawn from all classes, and end the nefarious practice of "stop-loss"? Do you support a war tax to subsidize undeclared wars and expeditions?
I do, and that's how you change the "tone" and establish a more united war effort before the first transport is loaded.
megapotamus | 4.5.10 @ 3:28PM
The phrase "zionist neocons" tells you all you need to know about canuckistan. And let's not forget, while there was no pardon the prison sentence was commuted.
canuckistani| 4.5.10 @ 4:04PM
How else would you characterize them? Most if not all JINSA members. I have no issue with a defended Israel, or a concerted effort to game the US system for benefit. That's politics, but to not realize that our own foreign policy in the region - and a policy that committed $700B and thousands of dead US troops, was being steered by these people is naive and at worst, dangerous. It's a "teaching" moment for middle America to not run blindly into battle the next time, and to know the aims of the real mission.
Fleischer is a dual citizen, the spokesman on the ground in Baghdad - in Baghdad!!!-, Dan Senor, is aligned. The whole operation reeked of hidden agendas on behalf of the zionist platform (I am careful to delineate zionist from Jewish, as even JINSA and AIPAC have strong opposition within their community), and undermines our position as an "honest" broker in the region.
If you found out that the refs for tonights game were Duke grads, would you protest or even raise an eyebrow? Probably, now consider the Arab world's view and they're getting shot up for not even double-dribbling.
Heatpacker| 4.5.10 @ 12:05PM
George Bush is a devout Christian, and I think that his vision of the faith clouded his judgment. I believe that his passivity in the face of left-wing vituperation stemmed from his obedience to the biblical admonition to turn the other cheek and to love one's enemies. He is undoubtably confident that the lies of his enemies will be exposed and that his actions will be vindicated. Such attitudes are worthy in one's personal life. They have much less value in the political arena.
Unfortunately, the same individuals who lied in an attempt to destroy him now have the reins of power in Washington, D.C. They are gleefully using lies in an attempt to destroy our republican form of government. The country must now suffer, because his passivity emboldened the Alinskyite radicals who rule the Democrat Party.
Perhaps this is God's plan. What is the quotation? 'Those whom God would destroy, he first makes mighty'? My (somewhat selfish) Easter prayer was that this destruction comes, not in His time, but in mine.
Heatpacker| 4.5.10 @ 12:28PM
According to Bartlett's, the quotation is 'Those whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad'. Actually, I think mine is just as good. However, given the fact that the Dem leadership appears to be insane, the Bartlett's quote may be more applicable.
canuckistani| 4.5.10 @ 5:09PM
"They are gleefully using lies in an attempt to destroy our republican form of government".
You're kidding right?
What was the use of impeachment for Clinton? Do you believe his lying about a bj trumps 4,000 war dead and thousands more injured based on a lie? If you want your republic back, then try measuring your guy with the same stick you measure theirs.
The right obviously still needs another enema before it can start to walk upright again.
Today, they're still knuckle dragging mouth-breathers that still don't understand Americans love being told everything is ok now.
Heatpacker| 4.5.10 @ 6:02PM
The glassy-eyed, dull-witted sheeple love to be told that everything is OK, especially when things are going to hell. The Obamanoids love it when the Dear Leader caresses them with vacant, soothing words. Meanwhile The One is establishing an elitist Chicago-style one-party oligarchy in which all the spoils are granted to the politically connected. Obama and his minions are dedicated to converting the U.S. into a banana republic. You must be so proud.
canuckistani| 4.5.10 @ 7:47PM
I am very proud we have bloodless elections, and actually can organize 300 million people to vote every two years. This is a real testament to our willingness to do our duty.
The ability to steer elections is free and open to any interest group out there - the supreme court has said so. If the GOP loses, and they lose fair and square, then the people have chosen. They have two years, just like this go around, to make their case and attempt to win the legislature for the next two years.....and so on and so on.
I don't like the spending or the immense entitlements we continue to grow each congress....and I hate the evasion and pork BOTH sides revel in like pigs in the sty. As Michael Corleone said: "Senator, we are both part of the same hypocrisy...."
There is no difference between BO's "social justice" rhetoric and Bush's "those who harbor terrorists are our enemies" rhetoric. Both cost vast billions of dollars to live up to, are probably impossible to accomplish, but just play to different emotions. The end result is the same: failed promises and more debt.
My point is the right has to grow up and come up with a platform that gently weans the masses off of the government teat, throws some sacred cows under the bus for while (anything social) and gets America righted. It will be painful and we will lose some friends along the way.
canuckistani| 4.5.10 @ 7:51PM
a bit more....
and be willing to say "not now" to special interests like the NRA, big oil and the ethanol industry. Throw indpendents some bones, and the right will win.
arlo price| 4.7.10 @ 2:16AM
"Absolute power corrupts absolutely"
So after the elections have been 'steered' and are no longer free and fair because they have been totally corrupted, is it not time then to do as the Founding Fathers stated:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. ".
Or is this precisely what is currently happening?
Cpm| 4.5.10 @ 9:00PM
I think the Bushies were just naive enough to think the Democrats would respond as patriotic Americans rather than craven power junkies. I doubt that mistake will be made again because now we know better.
Alan Brooks| 4.5.10 @ 1:06PM
"Establishment Republicans don't see the world in those terms so they don't see their 'friends across the aisle' as threats."
So why did the author write a puff piece on Rove? how does that help anything but sell Rove a few more copies of his new hardcover $24.95 plus tax?
You people think everybody is a sucker!
You DESERVE Obama.
Hubert Horatio Hornblower| 4.5.10 @ 1:39PM
This absolutely hits the nail on the head. Republicans don't seem to get that the Democrats are playing a completely different game, and they're in it to win it. The McCain's and Grahams don't live with the consequences - we do.
Blacque Jacques Shellacque| 4.5.10 @ 11:57PM
They assume that the Democrats would not beat this drum because *everybody* said and understood Sadam's threat.
Count Democrats as allies at your peril.
Christopher Holland| 4.5.10 @ 7:09AM
Where the hell was the President, what was he doing? George W Bush prided himself on being the CEO President, the decider who made the final decisions - blaming the staff when the boss was asleep at the wheel doesn't work for me. Bush was a weak, passive man who thought leadership was wearing cowbow boots and signing whatever was in his in-tray. This sounds like Hurricane Katrina all over again - the boss was out to lunch again.
loulou| 4.5.10 @ 9:17AM
Christopher Holland: I couldn't have said it better myself! Thank you.
DEVO| 4.9.10 @ 6:15PM
RI-CHEW-R! Nuff said, the rest is all windbag revisionism. Sure they sucked, don't we all? Except the Perfect Ones of course, you know, JFK, FDR, BHO.
Sissy Willis | 4.5.10 @ 7:31AM
Regarding Karl Rove's failure to promulgate the fact that Saddam had moved his WMDs to Syria, I, as a blogger and reader of blogs back then knew about it, blogged about it, tore my hair out about it.
I place the blame squarely upon the stooped shoulders of the legacy media, who surely knew at least as much as I but chose to ignore any information that might inconveniently contradict their "Bush lied, people died" narrative.
roadmaster| 4.5.10 @ 8:51AM
I felt like a totally frustrated, minority of one during that period - in spite of the research I'd done and facts I had gleaned about the movement of WMD's to Syria, the 500 tons of yellow cake, the equipment dispersed/ hidden throughout Iraq and the people in charge of it, WHO WERE TALKING!!! But the down stream media wasn't listening to Iraqis, nor we're they reporting the hundreds of examples of the existence of Saddam's WMD program, LIKE the trailers, scrubbed clean of course, but still essential to create chemical artillery munitions. I would argue daily with the "Bush lied/people died," morons, but got NO back up from the WH. I even wrote letters to Bush, begging him to come out with the evidence, but I guess he was too busy being a compassionate conservative. Just goes to show once again that the Left has it's own "truth," and can deep six any facts that disagree.
megapotamus | 4.5.10 @ 3:32PM
The media did what anyone would expect it to do. The supposed boy genius should have poured the real info out there, especially today there is only so muc power in media's willful ignorance. He might have still lost but he didn't play and that goes as much for Bush as Rove, at least.
Siegfried X| 4.5.10 @ 7:33AM
McCain and Bush were defeated because, from the CONSERVATIVE perspective, they were total failures. Socialism and redistribution couldn't become campaign issues because Bush, and especially McCain were socialist redistributionists.
Bush, with approval and full support from Ted Kennedy, passed socialist medicine-for-senior and education programs. He spent as much as any Democrat president before him. Bush signed McCain's campaign censorship law into effect, and along with the Democrats, tried to pass amnesty.
McCain had been positioning himself for a decade as a "maverick" Republican, meaning that he wasn't conservative at all. Partially to get ready for the presidency and partially to punish Republicans for choosing Bush and him, McCain spent those years causing Republicans as much pain as he could, giving the Democrats the critical vote every time he could. McCain talked of switching parties and Democrat John Kerrey wanted him as vice president.
McCain ran on nearly the same socialist platform as Obama: cap & trade, global warming laws, closing Guantanamo, amnesty, expanding Bush's social program, etc.
Dan Hirsch| 4.5.10 @ 8:44AM
Right on, Siegfried!
We can at least be grateful that McCain is not sitting up there orchestrating this mess with Pelosi and Reid. Imagine what cover the brave war hero, cowardly politician, MSM approval seeker, 'bipartisan' President McCain would have given the Democrats! Vice President Palin would be tied up in a Congressionally-mandated strait jacket with duct tape on her mouth! We'd have already been saddled with amnesty, health care, and cap and trade!
The Tea Parties and the feckless President Obama give me hope that we can fix this in November.
As for me, I am moving into Paul Ryan's district...
"Don't tread on me"
FreddyV| 4.5.10 @ 11:41AM
And now for the circular firing squad...
I don't try to even understand these people anymore. McCain, despite your perceptions about his faults, would never have introduced health care "reform" like Obama did. Pelosi and Reid, with McCain in the White House, would never have dared try to push through a "reform" measure like they did now. And a President McCain would have vetoed it if they did, and Congress would not have been able to override the veto.
Well, now we have the most radical President of our lifetimes, maybe ever, and he and the Democrats have just pushed through the most radical, game-changing, country-changing social and economic Leviathan since FDR (and in some ways bigger than what FDR did). For anyone to say that McCain would have been the same as Obama makes you seem ridiculous.
And explain how moving to Paul Ryan's district would change anything...
RAMIII| 4.5.10 @ 1:07PM
Remember that Reagan came AFTER Jimmy Carter and the 400 day American Hostage crisis in Iran, plus the Oil Embargos, plus the Misery Index, plus the etc. etc.
megapotamus | 4.5.10 @ 3:35PM
You must have slept through the election. No, McCain would not have imposed Ocare but his prescriptions still admitted the socialist premise and NO amount of accounting gimmickry could alter the basics of our national unfunded liabilities, now on the order of $210t. No, the compromiser would have yet more deeply branded the socialist principles of From Each, To Each with the noxious fraud of "bipartisanship". Obama, really is a godsend, like a biblical plague. And if we had McCain in there now we would have had Obama to the Obamanth power thereafter. This is bitter medicine but it must be swallowed. Now.
canuckistani| 4.5.10 @ 5:23PM
"Well, now we have the most radical President of our lifetimes, maybe ever,"
Huh?
$700B, 4,000 war dead, thousands more casualties, $1T tax cut on the eve of war, Patriot Acts 1 and 2, and seeding of all major institutions with incompetent hacks. What has Obama done that is so radical compared to that? He was elected on the healthcare platform he is implementing, promoted by the GOP during Clinton and implemented by Romney, put through TARP and the stimulus program ADVOCATED by the moneyright. Radical yet?
He has continued the Bush policies in Iraq and is executing a surge strat in Afghan. Radical yet?
Put a Hispanic on the bench. Ok, I'll give you that one.......
He expended 100% of his capital on the health care bill and barely scraped by. A radical? Not seeing it yet, you?
The GOP impeached a president for a bj. Not radical?
Cut the bs rhetoric and get real.
Bydand76| 4.5.10 @ 7:28PM
Honestly, Canuck you are about the stupidest lib on this forum save for Lib Reader!
For starters, Clinton was impeached for LYING you simpleton rube!
I know I am wasting my time here but please shut up already!
When we lose our credit rating and you are out begging for some bread and the economy is raining down on your head maybe ole Barney Frank can come along and hold your hand for you because you sound about as intelligent as that giant dipstick is!
Got talking points?
Also go back and do your research moron. Obamanuts was AGAINST Clinton-care!
Now he forces the American public to eat this socialist progressive fecal matter under the guise of health care reform and you toot your horn like its the greatest thing since pockets on shirts.
Typical liberal scum!
One day there will be a reckoning!
F- off and go back to whence you came!
Cpm | 4.5.10 @ 9:07PM
But at least we have those hardcore conservatives who can brag about sitting on their butts on election day because 'they ain't votin' for no damn RINO'. Apparently Obama's election is a badge of pride for them. But then we all know what goest before a fall.
loulou| 4.5.10 @ 9:20AM
Obama kowtows to Muslim potentates and Bush kowtowed to Teddy Kennedy.
Some cowboy. Now he running around with Bill Clinton. Bush was never a conservative. The tipoff was the "compassionate conservative" ap-cray.
JohnB| 4.5.10 @ 7:42AM
I disagree with Mr. Shattan. This country has one of the most corrupt old guard media, a media that prints and broadcasts only what it thinks the news should be. It would not have mattered if Sadam transferred his WMD's to Washington, DC. The media would still have claimed that they didn't exist. There is nothing that Rove or Bush could have done to counter the corruption in media. And, until that fact sinks in on the people of America and Americans replace the current media regime by ignoring them out of business, we will continue to be locked in a state of ignorance. Ignorance is the left's greatest tool.
loulou| 4.5.10 @ 9:22AM
JohnB: What a defeatist attitude you have.
A leader takes charge. The enemy was the corrupt old guard media and Bush/Rove rolled over for them. No lea-der-ship there.
Timothy L. Pennell| 4.5.10 @ 7:47AM
No doubt about it. And McCain is to blame, as well. I would have hung that P.O.S. WRIGHT, around Obamas' neck like a freaking millstone. Ayers, Davis, Farrakhan, Rashidi, Pfleger. the Black Panthers.
But this is NOTHING NEW. It's been going on FOREVER. Remember when that IDIOT - Lott - gave the Democrats CO-CHAIRMANSHIPS of Senate Committees? Because it was 50-50. But WE had the President of the Senate. The VICE PRESIDENT. Does anyone think that the Democrats would do that?
We've gotta stop playing patty cake with these DIRTBAG LYING SACKS OF S--T. It ain't funny anymore. Our futures are F**K*D. We're watching the FALL of the ROMAN EMPIRE right in front of our faces.
Yeah, Rove is an IDIOT. And the Republicans are THE STUPID PARTY, for a reason. But they'd better get their act together, or there's gonna be blood. I can smell it. And so can you.
loulou| 4.5.10 @ 9:25AM
Timothy L. Pennell: Great post.
McCain, Bush---same thing.
Timid, passive twerps who let the enemy define the game. (Yeah, yeah, I know McCain was a POW a half a century ago)
GC| 4.5.10 @ 10:21AM
The only explanation I can come up with for McCain continually seeking the approval of his enemies (i.e., political enemies) is that he has been overcome with a sort of Stockholm Syndrome from his time as a POW. Reading through a listing of his policy positions which contradict conventional conservative beliefs is shocking.
Siegfried X| 4.5.10 @ 7:51AM
Besides left-wing policies from Bush & McCain, I do agree with the premise of the article. One of the reasons Bush helped lose the congress and presidency was by refusing to communicate. Unlike President Reagan, who had a message-of-the-day and made communication a key part of his presidency, the Bush administration had the strange idea that politics wasn't necessary because "we'll be judged on how we governed". Some (former) Republicans in Congress said the same thing.
So as this article points out, the Bush Administration (and Republican Congress) just stood silently as lambs while the Democrats smeared them 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The result is that in Bush's administration we went from a Republican president & congress to having a Democratic president and 60% Democrat congress.
Ret. Marine| 4.5.10 @ 8:11AM
Yeah isn't it funny (not so) when the Congress has had control over the purse, from 06, forward, lied through their teet, remember they were the ones during the Clinton admin. claiming the same thing about the WMD's, but, it was in fact a Republican President who dared to do something about it, do any of us think for one New York minute the Demonrat party will show this type of resolve the next time we are attacked, I don't,and they then claimed "Bush lied, people died". I do wonder how many are truely that dumb, or stupid not to notice the stark contridictions. I don't blame Rove, I blame this lie upon the American libturds and their commie friends of the lamestream media more than I do anything else.
canuckistani| 4.5.10 @ 1:31PM
One difference: Bush took the bait that BUsh 41 and Clinton smartly avoided. DO NOT GET IN THE MIDDLE OF ISLAMIC BLOOD FEUDS. They existed before the US and likely will exist after.
Sleazy or not, Clinton and Bush 41 were both smarter and more thoughful than 43 ever was, and history has proven their policies to be effective.
The true learning in all of this is to NEVER EVER elect a Texan to president again. LBJ and GHW are enough for an eternity.
megapotamus | 4.5.10 @ 3:40PM
The brilliant stewardship of BushI and Clinton did not solve the issue of Iraq and indeed it is difficult to formulate what could have other than the current spate of nationbuilding, unless you can look on a Greater Iran extending straight through all of Iraq as a beneficial outcome for us. No, Daddy Bush made the big mistake by half-prosecuting the war, that mistake could have been rectified by Clinton but was not and probably even Bush would have kicked the can down the road if not for 911. This is the isolationist impulse, it reflects a cowardice that is unseemly in an American President. Whether he believed it or not, Bush did declare, "We believe that the prosperity and liberty that we enjoy at home is not for us alone. It is the capacity and the birthright of all mankind." Piss on it if you like.
canuckistani| 4.6.10 @ 9:49AM
I won't piss on that, it is a decent sentiment to hold - only if the deck is not stacked against the people that are paying with fortune and blood. Who has profited from Bush's moves in Iraq? The American people? The jury is still out and it is leaning no. Cheney's cabal of thieves and cheats? Absolutely, from bullet #1 that was assured. Saudi Arabia? Yes. Kuwait? Yes. Iran? Absolutely.
Oil? $85 a barrel, with a global recession. Hmmm.
The American Army? Tired, stretched and once again used by another small-minded Texan to achieve pyrrhic victories.
America only has a short history of non-isolationism to speak of. We are isolationists by nature. If you want to change that truism, would that not make you a progressive?
Howard| 4.5.10 @ 7:54AM
There are elements of truth in this article, but also a lot goes missing or unsaid. The failure to discover WMD's was critical, but not overwhelming as to why Bush lost his credibility. Also, was the "slam-dunk" promise by CIA chief Tenant. The 8/2003 bombing and the start of the uprising demonstrated the U.S. had little awareness of the facts on the ground. Add in Katrina, the fact that Bush never vetoed an out of control spending bill, and a weak candidate like McCain; how could Obama not win? I appreciate Mr. Rove falling on the sword, but, he is only a small part of the equation.
martin j smith| 4.5.10 @ 8:02AM
This is all well and good but water under the bridge. Having said that here is my take:
Bush ( and his father ) were RINOS and GWB was a coward for not standing up for himself and his policies--explaining (without revealing national security information ) reasons for his positions and why the democrat Party positions were dangerous for our security. It would have given the American people a choice of views. Instead, he rolled over and played dead. He made an error in signing the initial government ( tarp ) program This was BAD,BAD,BAD!!! He allowed himself to be the laughing stock of the world. Next MaC failed to directly attack real issues of BHO in the campaign and he had golden opportunities to do so.
But you had the MSM totally backing BHO and a very foolish electorate to add to the mix. It is likely that the Bush factors could not be changed, but MacC--I truly believe the difference in % votes between BHO and MacC was not insurmountable and with an impropved full frontal thrust on BHO's economic and national security theories and policy statements enough voters might have had second thoughts inspite of GWB. So while I blame GWB, I also blame MaC and the MSM plus an electorate unwilling to look more care3fully at who BHO really was and is.
Jocon307| 4.5.10 @ 8:03AM
I totally agree with Timothy. The Dems would NEVER, EVER, EVER in a million years share chairmanships with the pubbies in a 50/50 situation. Look at what they've just done to pass their Health Care "reform".
As to Wright he is also correct. The mere fact that Obama was permitted to say he knew nothing of Wright's views is the final damnation of the MSM in my view. Rev. Wright is entitled to his hate filled point of view, but the idea that one of his most devoted congregants should then be elected president is ridiculous. Where was the Washington Post to "macaca" the big O out of the race?
I heard Rove interviewed recently and although I'd always heard what a political genius he is (and he may be in some limited way) he came across as a typical RINO, feckless and overly concerned with the NY Times, et al. Slow to damn his adversaries and quick to condemn his allies. Hey, maybe Obama is a RINO too!
All those folks need to be shut down, shut up and shut out. Either the republican party will learn to lead the counter revolution against the 50 year leftist assault on our nation and way of life or they will be replaced with a party that will lead it.
We need leaders who DO NOT CARE what the NY Times say about them and who can effectively fight back against the unrelenting smears. People like Giuliani and McDonnell and (I sincerely hope he stays the course) Christie.
2010 is the most important election in my lifetime. Either we deprive the democrats of power now, or we may as well throw in the towel and prepare for a Soviet style way of life. 2012 will only be the second most important.
megapotamus | 4.5.10 @ 3:44PM
"Macacca" is the model; it is the template. No Rep standing for office should be ignorant of this putrid event. The Washington Post should be shunned by all good people unless and until they repudiate that vapid perversion of journalism. Yeah, hold your breath! Starve the MSM, do not watch them, do not hear them, do not click them. Let them die via the Schiavo treatment. They deserve much worse but that is what we have.
Peter| 4.5.10 @ 8:08AM
This article is just as pointless as the allegation made against Iraq before the war.
Reality is humen are greedy and love money and power. Iraq is rich in Oil and bush loves Oil and his dadddy is Oil man and Iraq floats on Oil except the plan of blowing up Iraq and the military in 2 months and spread "democracy" for Oil after words didn't exactly go the way it was planned.
Even if the weapons were transferred to Syria and the US intellegence knew about it, but who cares, why bother with poor Syria???
Ret. Marine| 4.5.10 @ 8:17AM
Listen dipstick, you'd better care if those weapons are somehow, (and the Demonrat party somehow missed the memo and try to pass this one onto the "evil" republicans) passed on to the terrorist. Who then will you not care about?
Ken (Old Texican)| 4.5.10 @ 9:23AM
Marine,
I liked your epithet for "Peter Pan" above.
heh..."dipstick"...get it? oil dipstick?
(blood for oil mantra)
Dumbed down electorate fits right in there too. Peter Pan is not using his own words of course, but merely typing his daily talking points from Mr. Soros.
Mr. Shattan,
Cutsie title for your article, but complete nightsoil of male oxen in my opinion. The Bush whitehouse, Mr. Bush's speeches, Dick Cheney, all spoke the truth, and very clearly.
Looking back, my only conclusion is similar to that of a commenter above. Bush and team truly did not grasp the "real game" afoot among Democrats and communists, (pardon the shorthand).
In a sort of perverse fashion, I think the advent of this despicable "regime" might be the best thing that could have happened to our country.
Milions and millions of our countrymen have now had a chance to see evil, face to face. The only question now, is whether the millions who didn't even get off their butts and vote in 2008, will have to watch their own liberty cut down.
Isn't it about time we all stopped finger-pointing ...at anyone else but ourselves?
Tom in Michigan| 4.5.10 @ 8:40AM
Speaking of the "dumbed down electorate." From Time Magazine online, Dec. 19, 2009 (not my favorite source but, I chose a liberal publication hoping against all hope, that it will change the mind of a "humen" who feels for "poor Syria:"
"Not a single U.S. company secured a deal in the auction of contracts that will shape the Iraqi oil industry for the next couple of decades. Two of the most lucrative of the multi-billion-dollar oil contracts went to two countries which bitterly opposed the U.S. invasion — Russia and China — while even Total Oil of France, which led the charge to deny international approval for the war at the U.N. Security Council in 2003, won a bigger stake than the Americans in the most recent auction. "[The distribution of oil contracts] certainly answers the theory that the war was for the benefit of big U.S. oil interests," says Alex Munton, Middle East oil analyst for the energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie, whose clients include major U.S. companies. "That has not been demonstrated by what has happened this week."
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world.....z0kEFCQnik
Teflon93| 4.5.10 @ 8:52AM
Delusional.
If it was all about the oil, why didn't we take the oil in 1991, when we had an open road to Baghdad, or in 2003, when we had taken Baghdad?
Fact is, the Russians and the UN came in through Oil for Food BEFORE the war and profiteered off the oil resources of Iraq while propping up the monster ruling it.
Or did you not know those were Russian SAMs firing at our airplanes enforcing the No Fly Zone?
As for Syria, it is a client state of Tehran. You might recall that in 1991 Saddam sent much of his air force to Iran. It is an old play to preserve assets the U.S. air force might otherwise destroy.
As for "poor Syria", Damascus overthrew the legitimate government of Lebanon and gives Hezbollah free rein. Syria also was until recently building nuclear reactors with North Korean help---the "until recently" being the result of an Israeli bombing raid.
The real question is of course why you and other lefties see conspiracies everywhere but amongst America's enemies.
But then that's no question at all, is it?
Tom in Michigan| 4.5.10 @ 9:27AM
More than anything Bush or Obama or Pelosi or Rove or whomever you want to pick as your personal bête noire can do to harm this country and the cause of liberty itself, what disturbs me most is the VAST number of Americans who don't even understand who their real enemies are. My own brother-in-law rails against "corporate America" and my own dear nephew once told me that we invaded Iraq for "the oil." This is nothing new; I was told once by a quite committed (and convinced!) anti-war type we invaded Viet Nam or its ‘tungsten” – honestly.
But, this willful ignorance (or maybe it’s just laziness coupled with a complete inability to think critically thanks to the very successful 40-year effort by the Left to destroy our educational system) is the very foundation of the cultural and national suicide we are now witnessing. Obama is a symptom of this not it’s cause.
megapotamus | 4.5.10 @ 3:44PM
I guess the short bus has wifi.
Bydand76| 4.5.10 @ 8:13PM
Yes, That is why the Chinese are getting all that damn Oil that the Texans were supposed to get...
Oooooh those damn greedy human beings!
Maybe like all of those pictures of people on the moon, MAYBE the US goverment made up all of those pictures of Saddam and Chemical Ali gassing all of those Kurdish people in the north of Iraq. Yeah ! That's it!
JUST in case you wondering. All of those mass graves were not real either and the Syrians are not part of the Ba'ath party either!
But HEY! It's pointless....... kind of like telling a Liberal to tie his shoes.
Bydand76| 4.5.10 @ 8:22PM
The above post is in response to Peter nonsensical rant .
I used sarcasm to illustrate my point.
(that is so Peter can understand it)
I think he is related to the Wiener guy from New York.
Mattled| 4.5.10 @ 8:17AM
How much responsibility does Cheney get for this debacle called a 'president'?
The VP should be positioned to run for office after his presidents term is up. Cheney should have been replaced by someone who could have used the office of VP to run for the next position---President.
Ken (Old Texican)| 4.5.10 @ 9:30AM
Mattled,
I most often agree with your sentiments, but here, I must ask the question:
Just who could Bush have appointed VP who had a chance to win in 2008?
I thank God Mr. Cheny was there trying to help W.
At least some of his wise counsel was implemented.
L.E. Powers| 4.5.10 @ 8:21AM
Why did this article make the reading list? Slow day with the writers? Mr. Shatten's article reveals nothing new about Mr. Rove or the situation, but talks a lot about the author. I don't see why I should care?
Sue| 4.5.10 @ 8:21AM
Yeah, yeah...great intellect. He lost me when he said he thought Barack Obama was going to govern as a centrist because that is how he sounded on the campaign trail.
Anthony| 4.5.10 @ 9:06AM
I agree, at this point who cares? That said, this analysis is a bit facile. The entire Bush White House was incapable of response to criticism, due mainly to Bush's "new tone" and his patrician sense of noblesse oblige. Bush still refuses to engage Obama, despite Obama's unseemly daily message that all things wrong are all BUSH'S FAULT". Only Cheney has fought back and each time, he has been wildly successful. One would think the Rs would have learned a lesson from Cheney's push back. Oh well, that's beltway myopia for you, and cowardice.
For years the base was screaming that the Bush W.H. should push back, especially since it had truth and facts on its side, nonetheless, Bush, Rove, and others let the Left control the narrative daily.
It was more than just with WMDs; the whole Plame and Wilson debacle was never slapped down. Scooter Libby went to prison for having done nothing wrong. And there were countless other incidents along the way.
Please, let it go, each time I'm reminded of the ineptness of the Bush White House, I get a headache.
Oilcan| 4.5.10 @ 9:18AM
The weapons inspectors, Charles Duelfer and David Kay, both confirmed that a lot of material was transferred to Syria before the war. However, they both said that this material was not WMD material because the mess that is made in producing WMD material was never found in Iraq. Therefore, we know that Saddam was never able to restart his WMD production while the sanctions and inspections were going on, so no WMD material was transferred to Syria.
I support the war, but not for this reason.
Teflon93| 4.5.10 @ 9:23AM
The mistake was in emphasizing WMD over Iraq's repeated violations of the 1991 ceasefire, continued attacks on coalition aircraft enforcing the No Fly Zone, support for terrorist groups, and attempted assassination of former President Bush in Kuwait.
Who was responsible for trumping up the importance of WMD?
Why, that would be Colin Powell.
kmbr| 4.5.10 @ 9:29AM
I could have cobbled together a better defense, hell any defense, to try and counter the press and the left. Mylorie GAVE them so much to work with. But, they let the press run with the "Bush lied" scenario and run with it they did.
I never understood how and why Bush just rolled over and let them destroy him without ever even trying to fight. He had an army of us that would have stood with him and he let us all down.
Majito| 4.5.10 @ 9:46AM
When you're labeled a liar by all the big names in media/government and you act just like gee, gosh ms. molly...nothing is happening, you're fueling this sentiment. Mr. Bush, for all his failings, the one I pin on him the most is that he forgot what Bible teaches about foolish men...he should have answered, directly and straight to the point. He and his administration began to screw it all up the moment they began to think that somehow they could 'win the hearts and minds' not only of the arab lands sand dwellers but the American left that so over populated by psychotic and misguided loons. There is a group I wished lotsa mothers had exercised their right to end pregnancies...
Douglas| 4.5.10 @ 9:48AM
I agree Rove is a major reason for the disaster we have now. He may have a huge intellect, but he sure didn't play this correct.
I do not agree for the same reasons. I believe he made huge mistakes promoting RINOS such as McCain and reaching out to Hispanics who have no desire as a majority to help conservatives. It doesn't matter if many of our values seem the same, they are not.
It would be best of Rove to be seen less and less and the same for Newt. They had their chance and ruined it.
owyheewine| 4.5.10 @ 9:57AM
I wonder if all the thumbsuckers and whiners about the Bush presidency can even precisely define a WMD. Chemical and biological weapons can be produced from ordinary industrial chemicals, small amounts of nuclear material for dirty bomb production are easily transportable. So what is the WMD that you expected to find.. a big box in the desert with WMD stamped on the side?
Teflon93| 4.5.10 @ 10:10AM
We found plenty, especially chemical artillery shells.
Our guys didn't wear MOPP suits in the desert heat for nothing, you know.
And they didn't call him "Chemical Ali" because he gave Canseco steroids.
Bydand76| 4.5.10 @ 8:40PM
We found a ton as well! Funny that we had media types with us but it didn't even make the late news!
I would have thought that the pictures of dead animals lying in droves around the 5 gallon drums filled with some type of nerve agent would have been enough to scare everyone. I know I was!
Funny how when we had chemical IED's detonated on us, and it wasn't even important anymore.
Funny how the mass graves of all the people killed by Saddam never seems to resonate with the progressive socialist. But, they will rail against every perceived thing they can think of if they can blame America for it though
It makes me sad.
big kahuna| 4.5.10 @ 10:00AM
DUSD John "Jack" Shaw was hounded from office by Rummy deputy Larry DiRita for going public with this on the eve of the 2004 election.
George Perrett| 4.5.10 @ 10:09AM
While I share the dismay over Mr. Rove's late recognition of the need to combat the virulent distortions created by revisionist Democrats, it is more than mildly simplistic to ascribe Obama's victories to Rove's failures. Obama's victory in 2008 had as much, if not more, to do with the near-collapse of the American economic and banking system, as it did Iraq. As Rove points out in Courage and Consequence, by the time that Petraeus's policies were implemented and succeeding in Iraq, public opinion on the wisdom of going into Iraq was increasing by margins of greater than 10%, from 30% to 42% or higher in the months after the s0-called "surge." Lest we repeat the election results of 2008 in 2012, we would be wise to keep our powder dry in pointing the finger at Karl Rove - in addition to the aforementioned economic malaise, Obama's election was about media abdication, a centrist campaign run by a far leftist Democrat candidate and perceived Republican ineptitude in nominating "Democrat-lite" as our standard-bearer. Rove endured scathing criticism for six plus years of serving President Bush, including real and appreciable threats to his personal liberty and freedom - we need not now compound that misplaced criticism by leveling more of our own.
Michael Tomlinson| 4.5.10 @ 10:16AM
George well said!
canuckistani| 4.5.10 @ 4:28PM
My only truck with Rove is he is an analyst and back-room operator, and he has not analysed his charge's performance with a clear lens, at least to us. Our outcomes in Iraq, as perceived in 2003, were pure fantasy. They still are today. $700B spent on an aimless war, plus a $1T tax cut on the verge of war was and is painful to understand. Nobody on the right raised a hand and asked how are we going to pay for this. Now we stand by and let the social-dems run the show. We had the chance and we blew it. Time to step back, heal, and regroup for the next phase in our development. When it comes to foreign policy, republicans suck at it, because the rest of the world ain't us, and they've been doing it longer - and our political ADD lasts about 4 years or so.
Michael Tomlinson| 4.5.10 @ 10:15AM
US Marines guarded WMD in Iraq at Muthana. So I've always been mystified by the claim there were no WMD in Iraq and why the Bush administration remained silent. One wonders if the CIA, populated with Clinton holdovers, ever honestly briefed the President or White House? Let not forget this is the same CIA that in 2007 stated Iran was 10 yrs from getting an atomic bomb. Can anyone say incompetent boobs?
While I fault the entire Bush administration for its failure to respond to Democrat and media lies I think the conservative movements meltdown or crackup of 2005-2009 made things even worse. The circular firing squad created by conservative pundits, the lose to win conservatives and the punish Republicans crowd made the failed and desperate nomination of McCain inevitable and the election of a Democrat unavoidable.
The good news America is experiencing first hand how bad Democrat leadership really is with its arrogant anti-democratic policies, unemployment hovering around 10%, under employment at near 20%, the US a laugh stocking and perceived wimp around the world and things primed to only get worse as long as Barack Obama occupies the White House.
Hopefully, conservatives have finally accepted the pragmatism of Ronald Reagan as the model for winning elections and governing. If not then Obama will not be the last failed Democrat to occupy the White House.
Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 4.5.10 @ 10:16AM
I was partially responsible also.
I didn't vote 10 times.
Michael Tomlinson| 4.5.10 @ 10:17AM
That's because you're not a Democrat. They're the only ones who practice voter fraud and intimidation.
Cris Worth| 4.5.10 @ 10:23AM
The Bush's are known for blown golden opportunities. W's father had the golden opportunity to finish off Saddam and the Republican Guard in February 1991 but failed to do so...then Bill.
W had a golden opportunity post 9/11 to seal off the border remove all illegal immigrants and with a declaration of war destroying all forms of Islamic terrorism but failed to do so...then our present situation.
canuckistani| 4.5.10 @ 4:41PM
Reagan and Bush 41 and even Clinton knew they needed Iraq to contain Iran. Bush 43 was just stupid enough to get gamed by the neocon interests and take his eyes off the prize: oil and the Chinese.
A true strong preseident is one that keeps his troops in their barracks and whips his diplomats until they beg for mercy - not the other way around.
George S| 4.5.10 @ 10:30AM
You're looking for excuses in the wrong places... John McCain was the only Republican that could have lost to either Obama or Clinton. How can he effectively be different when he is a Democrat at heart. Don't ever forget that McCain was seriously entertaining the idea of being Kerry's VP running mate in 2004. Let that sink in before we turn on Rove or Bush.
Anyway you slice it, you cannot escape the fact that the fortuitous (for Democrats) economic collapse in September 2008 had everything to do with how millions of undecideds cast their ballots. You seriously think that those people had WMD's on their minds when they voted for Obama?
What Rove is doing can hurt us in 2010, giving us an excuse to forget that the Republican congress spent and spent and Bush never vetoed any of it. Unless Republicans steer and remain clear of the political middle ground, they will not gain this year. Then who will we blame?
Focus on 2010. That's literally our last chance.
Purpleguy| 4.5.10 @ 12:55PM
Burying your head in the sand and forgetting doesn't change history... standup and take it like a man ... "Unless Republicans steer and remain clear of the political middle ground, they will not gain this year. Then who will we blame?" - how about yourself?
canuckistani| 4.5.10 @ 4:48PM
Purpleguy, you are right, er I mean correct.
A true con platform is a losing platform in America these days. We LOVE the nanny state like crack or a Tiger whore. Feels good, until the withdrawal, then we need more and more.
We need a nominee who will accept NO government money, and demand their cabinet takes no government money and promises to not run for reelection. Enacts a policy agenda approved by the majority of delegates at the convention. Just once, for old times sake.....
clarice Feldman| 4.5.10 @ 10:32AM
Dont put it all on Karl--the blood libel was started by Joe Wilson, fanned by David Corn and Kristoff, given legs by Schumer's pal Comey and his friend Patrick Fitzgerald who persecuted Libby and Rove because Colin Powell and his sidekick Armitage hid the fact that Armitage, not Libby, Rove or anyone in the WH had "leaked" the utterly insignificant fact of Plame's employment....and Armitage did it not to hide any relevant fact about Saddam's weapons or the reason we went to war but because he was a big mouth gossip.
It was a coup in other garb .
Eric Cartman| 4.5.10 @ 11:11AM
And if Bush or Rove cared about anything but themselves, they would have hung Armitage out to dry, stuck it to Joe Wilson, and that Plame bitch and took on the Left in general. They didn't. They sat back and did nothing. We are cleaning up Bush and Rove's mess because they refused to do it themselves.
Lu Dumak| 4.5.10 @ 10:48AM
No where is the fact that 500 tons of yellow was found by the IAEA at the end of the 1st Gulf War. It was placed under seal by the IAEA. It was eventuality purshased by Canada. Rick Moran & Douglas Hanson have written about this and the motives of the IAEA.
Petronius| 4.5.10 @ 10:56AM
SOSPHAD
Republicans lose because they don't want to win and have to do the heavy lifting of governance. They go to Washington to join the clique run by the enemy. They want their cut of the swag, party with our oppressors, and laugh at the rest of us.
Socialism is a convenience for them. Their greatest fear is that of a tradesman getting a tee time at one of their clubs or his son going out with one of their daughters.
The other big mistake is the failure of the GOP to understand that they can't use common sense to win over an infantile electorate that wants Uncle Sam to be mommy. Any nation that goes to war with a populace that is bereft of real men is for the chop.
Sic biscutis dissintegra
Drew | 4.5.10 @ 11:07AM
The advice of Will Rogers:When you find youself in a hole - stop digging" goes a long way to explain the Bush administration's (wise) choice not to rely on crackpots and opportunists like Laurie Mylroie and Georges Sada to ex post facto justify the Iraq war. The fact that in 2010 an American Spectator writer thinks its a good idea to do so now ought to give your readers pause.
Consider the case of Doctor Mylroie. A long-time apologist for the Saddam Hussein regime, she allowed the 1991 Iraq invasion of Kuwait to spur her into constructing a bizarre "unified theory of terrorism" that blamed (absent any actual evidence) literally every terrorist incident - from the Khobar Towers and Nairobi Embassy attacks, to the 1993 World Trade Center and 1995 Oklahoma City bombing on Saddam Hussein. She exaggertes her influence on the Bush administration prior to the 2002 invasion of Iraq (a few of her e-mails may have made it to a few officials, but no one took them very seriously. Can you blame them?)
Or take fmr. Iraqi Airforce General Georges Sada, and his absurd claim that Iraq "transferred" their entire WMD infrastructure aboard two civilian airliners. Note also that Gen. Sada does not claim to have direct knowledge of this - instead he claims he heard it from the pilots involved.
Anyone with the slightest knowledge of WMD programs would dismiss this claim out of hand. It simply is impossible to fit the extensive research and industrial equipment necessary for a weaponized WMD program into a couple of airplanes. And more to the point, the United States has deployed huge military and civilian intelligence resources, operating with complete freedom, inside Iraq for the better part of eight years - and yet have found precisely ZERO credible evidence that Saddam Hussein had a working WMD program in the spring of 2002.
We may speculate on why fmr. General Sada chose to air his bizarre theory. I suspect it may have more to do with selling books to credible fools than it does with exposing any sort of factual truth.
But hey, you'll find no shortage of gullible fools and wacko conspiracy theorists here at American Spectator. Go with it.
Eric Cartman| 4.5.10 @ 12:48PM
The last time I was in the area, there was a couple of tanker trucks full of VX gas that went missing. There were 3 trucks leaving Kuwait going up HWY 6 near Basra when one truck caught fire and burned to the ground. The British marines did the recon ( as I can remember) and affirmed the presence of VX gas in the rubble. The other two tankers went missing - still haven't been found. Where are they, Ahole Drew? I think that qualifies as WMD, no? Containers of Marburg virus and cow pox (thanks to the USDA) are unaccounted for. And didn't Saddam have the capacity to make fertilizer? Why, I think he did! And can't these plants also manufacture nerve agents and bio weapons? Why, I think they can! A few tankers of these products can kill thousands! Doesn't that qualify as WMD? Why, I think it does! These amounts can easily be transferred to another country - the "infrastructure" Ahole Drew babbles on about can stay put. Which, I think it did!
So Aholes like Drew can squawk all they want about Gen. Sada and "absurd" claims. Also, it's nice to see Ahole Liberals like Drew to stick up for the likes of the CIA and other "Intel resources". Like this one: http://www.defense.gov/news/ne.....?id=15918. But, it's nice to see Ahole Liberals suck up to them. As a matter of fact, Ahole Liberals have relied exclusively on the likes of Plame and her Hubby for support. I would think they would cite the fact that the likes of the CIA and MI5 and the French and Russians all report WMD in Iraq. Not to mention the fact that the CIA missed the fall of the Soviet Union ENTIRELY - that could be a problem in the reliability area.
Scumbags like Drew point to Sada and others as tainted or not trustworthy (which they may well be). They do this to deflect the argument about WMD - which isn't the only reason we invaded Iraq. The fact is, there is missing WMD. It may have been destroyed or depleted by age or buried in the sand. Doesn't matter. It was a question mark we could not afford to ignore. Ahole Liberals basically ignored Osama and look what happened. WMDs were only one reason to topple Saddam - don't let Ahole Drew distract you.
Drew| 4.5.10 @ 1:09PM
Quote: There were 3 trucks leaving Kuwait going up HWY 6 near Basra when one truck caught fire and burned to the ground
My emphasis. The Iraqi army was never IN Kuwait in 2002. Rest assured that most of us liberals are smart enough to know the difference between 1991 and 2002.
Maybe you think everyone is as stupid as you are? Go with that theory. You'll end up even more of a laughingstock than you are already.
Eric Cartman| 4.5.10 @ 1:21PM
Seems you can't read, either. That was the last time I was in the area, pindick. The question for Ahole Liberals like yourself is Where did they go? They were there at some point, no? They are not accounted for, oui?! Drew can't seem to follow a thought, everybody! Lets all laugh at him now! Hahahahahahahah! Your stupidity is showing when you can't even read a few simple sentences and get the point. What a putz!
Drew| 4.5.10 @ 2:10PM
Its not me who can't follow an argument.
There is little doubt that Iraq had, and used, chemical WMD in the early 1990s. (They used them on the Kurds, they used them in the war against Iraq.)
But that's NOT what is being discussed here. The article is talking about spring of 2002.
Instead you choose to introduce an irrelevant observation of something that happened a decade or more before that.
Learn to keep a civil tongue, and maybe people would take you more seriously.
Eric Cartman| 4.5.10 @ 2:36PM
Don't try to plaster over your stupidity, Drew. You can't talk about this war without talking about the WMDs and you have to go back to the Gulf War to talk about them, ahole.
We all see your stupidity, dumbass. Hey everybody! Let's chant:
Drew-is-stupid! Ha- ha ha-ha ha-ha! Can't-follow-a-casual-con-ver-sa-ion! Ha- ha ha-ha ha-ha!
So quit lying, Drew. You said there was no WMD.
Drew lied! People died!
Drew said you need to move all sorts of complex "infrastructure" to "transfer" WMD! Trucks are complex "infrastructure" to Drew!
Drew-is-stupid! Ha- ha ha-ha ha-ha! Can't-follow-an-argument! Ha- ha ha-ha ha-ha!
Drew, why did you lie? Try to cover up your incompetence? Let your Lefty trolls down? Why, Drew, why?
Hey, hey, ho, ho, Lefty Drew is a lying A-ho!
loulou| 4.5.10 @ 5:11PM
Ignore Drew. He's worthless.
MikeN| 4.5.10 @ 11:08AM
This is silly. So George Bush starts, er escalates, a war with Iraq by arguing that Iraq has WMD, after invasion no WMD are found, and his defense is then that the dangerous WMD over which we went to war and lost thousands of soldiers, they're next door in Syria.
GC| 4.5.10 @ 12:27PM
You're an idiot MikeN. W didn't decide to "start" a war and then send the troops the next day... he allowed himself to be derailed by a lengthy process in which he sought the approval of a perfidious UN security council before he was able to start the invasion. Those MANY months gave Saddam the time he needed to hide, destroy, and export his WMDs. If you wanna rewrite history, go to the Huffington Post, where they don't know or care about facts.
Richard_Iowa | 4.5.10 @ 11:21AM
As a (conservative) university professor I want to chime in on the dumbed down electorate. I have students who do not read, do not know what critical thinking is, have no idea what is going on in society, the world, or politics, and are very involved in pop culture. Along comes this guy with the slogans, "Change you can believe in," and "Yes we can" and that is pretty much all it took to get elected. They have no idea what promises he is breaking because they did not listen to his speaches. They have no idea what kind of debt he is leaving them because they do not read the news.
Bush is responsible for the election loss because the people were fed up with the Repulicans spending like drunken sailors, with no disrespect to drunken sailors. Bush also dressed down his conservative base when they revolted against his amnesty aspirations - how'd that work out for ya George?? Then there were the dispicable injustices to Scooter Libey, Jose Compean and Ignacio Ramos that Bush did not adequately deal with. I was stunned at how the Bush administration did not address the WND of Iraq. There are other things that did not sit well with Bush's conservative base, but these provide the foundations for the election loss.
arlo price| 4.7.10 @ 3:13AM
We have a winner:
GIVE THAT MAN A KEWPIE DOLL.
Jerry M| 4.8.10 @ 2:39PM
There are many reasons Obama ended up in the presidency. To point to one individual is ludicrous. It really comes down to never underestimate the stupidity of the American voter many of whom vote for superficial reasons because they are to clueless to do otherwise. This country is on the verge of a disastrous future if the electorate doesn't wise up. I too am a conservative professor at a college in the Kansas City area.
bullwhacker| 4.5.10 @ 11:32AM
Bush/Rove got rolled by the democrats on TARP as well. It opened the flood gates!
Purpleguy| 4.5.10 @ 12:52PM
If Bush hadn't come through, we'd all be in soup lines in another Great Depression. Be glad he did and Obama continues his legacy...
gearjammer| 4.5.10 @ 11:35AM
I believe Bush was too much a " politeness man ", and far too pacifistic, turn the other cheek Christian. He finally hired somebody who knew how to fight back and deliver hard shots to the media punks. That man was Tony Snow. Republicans must study his work. He was never bombastic or brash or rude or whatever else kind of traits that turn off women in particular against GOP. Smooth, educated, boyishly handsome, trustworthy-yes a boyscout-but he hit back hard. Compare him to that idiot from Texas with the yellow dog democrat mother, and one can only ask W and Rove- " what were you thinking ?". As far as " not feeding the beast", when will Heritage or some other think tank provide a analysis of the money streams going to media conglomerates, and how we can stop feeding that beast ?
Connie| 4.5.10 @ 11:37AM
YES, we definitely have a dumbdowned electorate!!! Could our liberal school teachers have anything to do with it? My new idea is this: I believe that since "children" can stay on their parents health insurance policy until they are 26 - they shouldn't be able to vote until they are 26. How would that work? I couldn't vote until I was 21 at which time I was the wife of a school principal. Times have changed and often not for the better. Just watch the crowds behind our President when he speaks at rallys - they are "young" people who have not lived life at all. In time many of them will wake up to the socialist society we are becoming.
gearjammer| 4.5.10 @ 11:40AM
MikeN, if the current administration is continuing the practice of heavily monitoring these suspected locations would that lead you to believe the conventional wisdom as offered by the usual ones could be wrong ?
ralph| 4.5.10 @ 11:42AM
As a past muli-term republican delegate I think the fix is in.
The republicans at upper levels do not support the platform. When we had soldiers in the battlefield and Rove and then Presdent Bush were at that party and Rove was doing the chichen dance that showed me alot. Now whenever I see his name or face thats the vision I see. Also WMD's were discovered, but they were not made public, helping to hand the election over to the liberals. Then we get a RINO John McCain as our chosen candidate who admired Obama, who I could not even vote for, except for the glimmer of hope we had with Sarah Palin. So, here we are in a huge mess with very few republicans we can support.
james| 4.5.10 @ 11:46AM
Disturbing but hardly eye-opening. This is the way Bush did everything: he never fought for anything. Remember, he went seven years or so without using his veto pen even once. And remember how he "sold" social security reform? He was our weakest president since Buchanan.
pugsley| 4.5.10 @ 12:24PM
If people would view this whole situation as a chess match where one group (one world government socialits) are moving both sets of chess peices this thing comes into view a bit better. Saying Bush is an idiot, or a person that has too much forberance, or is too religious is missing the point. These people in elected office are not stupid, they are not idiots, they are not clueless. They are there for a reason, to push the country towards one world gov rule. We are almost there now and soon will be. Look at the communist manifesto, line for line like a check list of things to do that have now been achieved. The population was manipulated by the Bush non response. The people were ginned up and the trap was laid with McCain as the new batter in the box. People wanted none of it. Now you can argue all day long and talk of conspiracy theories but the fact remains the country is headed straight to a controlled socialistic form or government. Now the one thing that is on my mind is this, if we do not get redress in November, then what? At that point we have just two choices, go along to get along or fight. What will happen, only time will tell. Now comes word that the rats are starting to jigger the election offices already so who knows? The rats are rushing headlong towards their goal of total rule and they are almost there, I am not hopeful.
Purpleguy| 4.5.10 @ 12:51PM
Well, if Karl Rove helped elect Barack Obama president, then we should thank God for his help. George Bush started the TARP pgm and with Barack Obama, our 2 presidents saved us all from another Great Depression, and we should all be thankful of that.
Eric Cartman| 4.5.10 @ 1:26PM
"our 2 presidents saved us all from another Great Depression, and we should all be thankful of that."
Prove it.
Purpleguy| 4.5.10 @ 3:06PM
What planet have you been on? Every economist, right, left and center said the same thing ... stop the bleeding or the financial system will collapse, and with it the entire world economy. I get so tired of the twits who can't bother to read anything beyond bumper sticker politics. Go learn something ...
Eric Cartman| 4.5.10 @ 3:41PM
So $780 Billion dollars saved the entire planet's financial system? Really? We are that close to collapsing entirely? That's a scary thought! You should read more:
http://seekingalpha.com/articl.....ld-of-tarp
loulou| 4.5.10 @ 5:16PM
Purpleguy swallows what the mainstream media feeds him--hook, line and sinker. Lacks analytical skills.
The fact is, Bush panicked like a ninny and was totally ineffectual during the financial meltdown.
Purpleguy| 4.5.10 @ 5:43PM
Au contrare, my misinformed miscreant. Any academic study clearly showed that this country and indeed the world was on the precipice. Any student of the Great Depression knows that they did exactly what was needed .... even better in concert with the G20, which was a complete 180 from what was done in the late 20's & early 30's that exacerbated the Great Depression. Perhaps it was not even big enough, considering what the greedy slobs that got us in this mess created - and that was the private sector boys - not the Government. Government relaxed the rules, but the private sector fed at the trough and dumped it onthe rest of us. New financial regulation is needed to stop this from happening again. Greed, I mean capitalism, always needs to be held in check by regulation. Unbridled capitalism will always corrupt itself. Stop listening to Faux news, Rush Limpjaw and especially Glenn Beckistan and read and learn something.
Eric Cartman| 4.5.10 @ 5:53PM
Well, there WAS a lot to be panicked about - still is in RE to OTC derivatives and exposure of the banks. But there were (are) other avenues. And I STILL don't see anybody going to jail. Aggravating.
Eric Cartman| 4.5.10 @ 6:05PM
the above was a reply to loulou. As for you Purplegump, there is no evidence that TARP did anything you are professing- I suppose you also thing that FDR got us out of the depression? If you do, you're a bigger dumbass than I thought. Name one academic study worth its weight in dog crap that says what you are pushing, my misinformed malignancy. TARP saved some big banks from going into bankruptcy, which they should have done. The assets would have been revalued sold like they should have.
Now for teh funny stuff: Get this everybody, Purplegump thinks that the Government didn't have a hand in creating this mess! Now we can all laugh at him, too! Ahhahahahahahahahah - and point - Ahahahahahahahahahahah! What an ahole!
purpleguy| 4.6.10 @ 10:24AM
"TARP saved some big banks from going into bankruptcy, which they should have done." You made my point exactly, no need to cite and "academic studies".... the financial system is the lifeblood of the economy ... if it collapses, so does everything else. We were so close to a Depression (which you obviously don't fear - and YOU SHOULD), what do you think made a Republican President swallow his pride and approve the TARP? If you knew anything, instead of swallowing all the hype that the controversy merchants are always peddling, you wouldn't need to call names - but being the low-information bumper-sticker mental giant that you are - I will love you in spite of your ignorance.
WilliamInWien| 4.5.10 @ 12:53PM
Although I voted for W twice, (what other choice did I have?) I have to say that by his second administration, I just could not listen to him any longer! Now, in much less time than one administration, I cannot listen to our current POTUS and his 17 minute response, notice I did not say answers, to a 15 second question. To a "dumbed down electorate" I would add an eternally optomistic electorate wearing rose colored glasses. The "spread the wealth around" comment was totally obfuscated by the press and their immediate focus on Joe the Plumber and not Obama. You have to have 20-20 hearing! Oil "exploration" and oil "drilling" are not the same.
canuckistani| 4.5.10 @ 4:17PM
Voted fro him twice? and you haven't killed yourself?
Coward.
WilliamInWien| 4.5.10 @ 7:16PM
Canuckistani-hey: I live to vote again, suicide is not in my vocabulary. Voting AGAINST one candiate as opposed to FOR the other candidate is a pragmatic choice. Love the name calling. Truly substantive and enlightening submission. Cheers!
mac| 4.6.10 @ 12:55PM
You don't have the balls to say that type of left-wing crap to anyone in person. You'd be the type to key their car, however, if it was late and no one was around. Then you'd gloat over what a "tough guy" you are--in your mom's basement.
Whelp.
David| 4.5.10 @ 1:02PM
Connie and the others, yes, we definitely have a dumbed-down electorate, and I too put most of the blame on the public education system.
But please don't be fooled concerning who Bam Bam's supporters are. There are numerous middle-aged and older men and women where I work who still supported him and continue to support him. For an example, I am talking about rabid supporters like a 60-something white woman who attends a Catholic mass every single day at lunch.
As polls a few months ago showed, 46% of people said they would vote for Obama again. After the nonsense the dems and the prez pulled the past few months, an astounding 46% still say they would vote for him again. That is scary. I am afraid that is the best we are ever going to get out of the ignorant voters. All Bam Bam has to do is a couple of things that most people can support and I can easily see him getting over the 50% mark in 2012. Especially if voters make sure there is a repub Congress to keep him in check. The voters will feel comfortable with divided government as they did when Clinton was prez. And the economy and unemployment will probably be improving on their own by then. And I can't imagine all of the touchy/feely people turning out our first black prez after one term.
I hope I am completely wrong about it because almost 7 more years of this anti-American, anti-capitalist, Black Liberation Theology/Marxist adherrent, and he will permanently have changed this country for the worse if not destroyed it.
Arlo Price| 4.7.10 @ 3:25AM
Please refrain from perpetuating the LIE that b o is the first black president.
In truth, he is the FIRST Half-WHITE president.
Publius | 4.5.10 @ 1:21PM
I agree. In politics, if you allow a lie to go unchallenged it becomes fact. Today we see the practice of having government intervene in the private-sector economy being an obligation, instead of the unproven lab experiment it always is. The government cannot create prosperity in the private-sector by undertaking fiscal policies on the same scale the private-sector would be able to take in the absence of these policies. Yet, you see people who believe in "jobs bills" on both sides of the aisle - even though every jobs bill creates more unemployment as a result of the application of the laws of mathematics. Do Republicans mention this? Nope. They talk about "responsible spending".
This is the same thing. Nobody defended the policy so the lie became the truth. This is how Hitler ended up being able to make the average German believe that imperialism and the Holocaust were a requirement. This is how America justified the genocide of the American Indian and how Japan justified liquidating millions of Chinese. When you let a liberal lie go unchallenged, you become a tacit endorsement for what always turns out to be the worst of all outcomes. Mr. Rove may be a brain-trust, but I am one of the few conservatives who doesn't believe it. He's a very successful politician and that's the end of that.
Paul Petersen| 4.5.10 @ 1:30PM
Pinning Obama's presidency on Carl Rove is just too much of a stretch. McCain pulled even or slightly ahead until the AiG TARP fiasco. After that McCain refused to get dirty and go after his opponent choosing to take the high road to defeat. Zero was a fat target to go after what is known about his past and character.
No Nuts, no presidency. I can think of no higher humiliation for McCain to be turned away by his own party in the primary this year. Nothing make better hamburgers than a sacred RINO.
Pete
Kenneth E. MacAlister Jr.| 4.5.10 @ 1:54PM
The fault of the election of Obama cannot be laid at the feet of one Republican. It CAN be laid at the feet of the entire GOP, including the previous administration. The spinelessness of the Bush administration & the GOP in dealing with Democrats & the American left then & now along with their loose spending gave us Obama & the Democrat majorities in Congress. I left the Republican party because of their fiscal irresponsibility & lack of cajones & won't go back until a TOTAL turnover takes place in the Party. Until the conservatism of The Founders returns to the GOP they've lost me. I would not vote Democrat with a gun pointed at my head & will be very careful before pulling the lever for any Republican. The days of a straight Republican vote down the entire ballot are over. All incumbents out now!
martin j smith| 4.5.10 @ 2:00PM
I generally agree that the focus on Blaming Rove is foolish,misguided and counter productive. Here is what i would suggest looking forward: The 2o12 candidate for president should not be a Rino but someone with solid principles that are conservative particularly on the economic and national security. I know that to many posters social issues are very important. The reason I would not stress these is this: The Tea Party people--good source of voters and energy on not all conservatives, they and Independents and even Democrats. The totality of the Tea Party folk agree on two major issues critical to stopping the Left agenda. create a coalition for one purpose only--get rid of the Left.
astonerii | 4.5.10 @ 2:07PM
McCain and TARP elected Obama to the the White House. McCain chose to lose to 'the first black president of the United States of America'. He likely chose Sarah Palin because in his eyes she was too conservative and would damage his chances at victory. He suspended his campaign in order to work on the financial crisis and his great huge plan was to go along with the plan that was already decided upon. He then started to shoot Palin in the back by letting his staffers besmirch her, because she actually was a liability to his plan to lose. We lost the presidency because too many rejects voted McCain to be the standard bearer and that standard bearer was nothing more than a traitor to the cause.
Northern Rebel | 4.5.10 @ 2:15PM
Love that "new tone."
David| 4.5.10 @ 2:42PM
Want a conservative to lead the party in 2012. I suggest that everyone give serious consideration to Mitch Daniels. He is the current governor of Indiana and has held several other positions in which he has shown himself as someone who actually fixes problems and accomplishes things. Please everyone Google him and check out his resume.
Shamus| 4.5.10 @ 4:46PM
I'd love to have Mitch Daniels as president. He's done a fantastic job as governor of Indiana and he's one of the few people who could solve the problems that the Washington politicians have caused.
Pingback| 4.5.10 @ 2:51PM
Karl Rove: I Was A Conservative; Yeah, that’s the Ticket | DBKP - Death By 1000 Paper links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
gene hauber| 4.5.10 @ 3:03PM
WELLLL..................... IF A PRESIDENT'S LYING TO THE AMERICAN PUBLIC IS "UNFORGIVABLE", THEN HUSSEIN OBAMA SHOULD BE SHIT. OH, DAMN . ANOTHER MIS-SPELLING
canuckistani| 4.5.10 @ 4:15PM
Start with Reagan, oh yeah, he's dead, and Bush 43....oh yeah he's politically dead, and running around with Clinton the Philanderer shaking hands with the unwashed. Surely a sign of the rapture.......
You better pray American society births enough babies to compensate for your stupidity in generations to come.
Donny| 4.5.10 @ 4:06PM
There was a man -- name escapes me -- who did the talk radio circuit with all the goods on Saddam's WMD. But yet, Bush, Rove and WH slumbered on. What a shame. Maybe Rove was too busy trying to get Specter elected over Pat Toomey, another mistake he is now trying to undo.
wodiej| 4.5.10 @ 4:35PM
had no use for Bush, Rove, Rumsfield and Cheney and still don't. Bush acted like an arrogant ass all the time, swaggering around like a cowboy. Ruined every business he was involved in w "Daddy Bush". Didn't he have a questionable military record? a DUI and drinking problem? A "C" average in college?
He patted everyone on the back who worked for him and made no one accountable for anything. He spent like a drunken sailor and then wanted to give illegals amnesty. No thanks, I want a REAL conservative. And yes Mitch Daniels would be very good as would Sarah Palin, and Mike Pence.
Shamus| 4.5.10 @ 4:43PM
McCain gets credit for losing the election. He was a lackluster candidate who ran a poor campaign. And in spite of all this McCain had a chance to win until he announced that he was suspending his campaign. This sounded like a resignation and ensured his defeat.
bernardo| 4.5.10 @ 5:23PM
I agree that Rove should get some blame for the present mess, but only a small bit. The man in charge was George W. Bush. It was he who expanded government, recklessly increased spending, created deficits, started the bailouts, led us into pointless wars in Iraq and post- Tora Bora Afghanistan, and squandered political capital with stunning indifference. He brought us Obama as surely as Nixon brought us Carter.
Jim Wilson | 4.5.10 @ 6:28PM
I knew all about the Syrian connection back when the war started too. It still astonishes me that it isn't general knowledge--but then the MSM has gone overboard morphing into the Propaganda Ministry.
I also consider GW Bush a failure as president for the same reason his father failed; they thought they were managers instead of leaders. They used their leadership skills with the military, but not with the party or the people. All that 'bi-partisan' crap is just manager-speak for 'go along to get along.' After 9/11 GW Bush could've transformed America the way Reagan did, instead he said 'go out and shop. Business as usual.' What a waste of a presidency. And Rove is as he admits partly to blame. The whole administration bought into the fallacious philosophy of management theory. Now we've got the apotheosis of management theory in the White House. One can only hope that he manages to destroy management theory along with his presidency.
raylynn| 4.5.10 @ 6:39PM
Don't need to write an essay: go away Karl Rove. You gave us Obama, you ruined the GOP, you helped perpetuate a war that was unwinnable due to your kiss and tell with "peaceful" Islam. PLEASE GO AWAY FOREVER! The Tea Party movement can't stand your smirky face!
Gerald Stephens| 4.5.10 @ 6:55PM
GREAT THOUGHT, TIME and ENERGY...
...is invested in the above. The historical observations trumpet a life and death warning. The survival of this nation is the stake and now dependent upon drawing the figurative gun and slaying every politician not consonant with the Constitution. No prisoners.
No where in the dictionary used for the 'game' will the words compromise, bi-partisanship or any possible synonym appear.
One hesitant about or uncomfortable with absolute allegiance to the Constitution is to be struck down. In and about 1776 it was literal.
Ken (Old Texican)| 4.5.10 @ 7:50PM
The blogs here at amspec have a very short half-life.
I hope copy/pasting here will see some more eyeballs.......
Ken (Old Texican)| 4.5.10 @ 1:03PM
Ryan,
Smack on target, guy! 2010 for a "conservative congress" is crucial!
OK,
Let me peer into the future. (smile)
Personally, I would be tickled pink, (so to speak), if Sarah won the Presidency. She has simply shown more courage than anyone we have. She has stuck the crud right up the communists' noses...on a daily basis, since 2008.
I like Ryan. He is a little wonky, but he is solid.
I love DeMint, but right now he is playing the "collegial game" as a Senator. (Help me out SC readers, when is he up for re-election as Senator?)
I have read his book "Saving Freedom", and it is straight...and brilliantly written. DeMint is also a true "Southern Gentleman". Don't let his soft words fool you...General Lee of Virginia was soft spoken as well.
Pawlenty and Jindahl do not have the "stage presence" we will need.
Forget Romney. As his fellow Mormon, Orson Scott Card stated, "Be serious!"
No, folks, Romney wears the wrong kind of underwear, and he signed the Massachusetts health law.
There are a couple of Republican governors who are splendid. So far, they are quietly monitoring the flow of events.
Folks, we need an arse-kicker in the Presidency.
Knowing what I KNOW, right now our best apparent ticket for 2012 is DeMint-Palin, (or vice versa), if they are willing to run.
Besides, heh, I would just love for Sarah as President of the United States of America to point her finger straight in the face of the Muslims...and tell them on worldwide TV.....
"Shove your misogynist...(woman hating - fearing), crud where the sun does not shine".
Or in the words of Ronald Reagan to the Russians..."wellll, if you think you are up to it..... DRAW!"
(He really did say that to them. I heard it from the Russians... my own self.)
Yep, the American "press" was calling him a "fast-draw movie cowboy".
He scared the crap out of the Communists, then loaded up with "SDI" better known as the "Star-Wars Defense", in his "six-gun".
Sarah's message to the 12 ers, (Shia muslims) might simply be..."DRAW! We will put a pig on every warhead."
(Heh, maybe a moose on every warhead.)
To you doubters above...WE MUST HAVE A POLARIZED CANDIDATE...ONE ON OUR SIDE!
...that or a shooting war right here in America. Get over it.
arlo price| 4.7.10 @ 3:37AM
Personally and frankly, I'm bored with this bloodless coup.................Let's Roll
jabberwocky| 4.5.10 @ 8:23PM
Reading the "back and forth" between Eric Cartman and Grzmlyk - new soul mates in their assessment/agreement of politicians and war, reminded me of a time during the run-up to the Gulf War. I had to take a ton of soft drink cans to a re-cyle van for Boy Scouts fund raiser. The re-cycle van was manned by a laid back homeless shelter looking guy, sitting in an alumnum deck chair on the back of the truck, listening to his radio.
He commented to me that he had it on the q.t., that "they" had ordered a gazillion body bags for this fiasco of Bush's(that would be Bush '41) War - the one that if, Saddam's military had had any tanks they would have had to have been equipped with back-up lights - the one where his elite were surrendering to CBS reporters....Well, the hippy-dippy expert re-cycle guy rambled on, delaying weighing my cans until I stopped him with, "You know what the real problem is? It is that Bush is relying on a bunch of half-baked advisers going into this and you sit here with all the answers, and can't give him the benefit of your intelligence. because you gotta weigh cans.
Note: if we had the body bags on that one, we didn't use them. But we didn't finsh the war, either.
Twenty-twenty hindsight and Monday morning quarter-backing. The stuff dreams are made of.
And about poor Scooter LIbby - I will never understand how/why he took the fall for Valerie Plame . I will never understand, if he was such a righteous guy, he defended Marc Rich, one of FBI's most wanted.. And I will really never understand why an adult male would tolerate being called "Scooter"
mark| 4.5.10 @ 9:55PM
The problem is that Rove hasn't learned a damn thing. Just listen to him on FNC and you can still hear that "Don't bother me with that nonsense" tone. He'll never understand the kind of micro groundwar that has to be fought in today's information age.
Rove's worth his weight when it comes to the pure political combat, such as his leveling of Pluoffe on This Week. But he's lost in a guerrilla fight.
JudyM| 4.5.10 @ 10:22PM
Republicans are so quick to criticize and devour anyone who missteps. Democrats, on the other hand, don't mind serial adulterers, tax cheats, plagiarists, out-right liars - you get the idea. While I strongly prefer fiscal conservatives, I am trying not to trash Republicans, who by almost any standard, far exceed Democrats on the personal integrity, defense of America and personal accountability scale. Quit the Republican on Republican bashing folks - the Democrats love watching it.
James| 4.5.10 @ 11:09PM
Look, if this was the case, how the hell could Rove say he was distracted? Colin Powell was vilified over this and of all the Bush problems, the ultimate one was he lied to go to war... WTF... this is the biggest imagery left by Bush... he was distracted? If this story is true, then all the supposedly brilliant Rove moves are totally negated by this blunder.
akw| 4.6.10 @ 2:34AM
I disagree. When we didn't immediately find WMD's in Iraq, the Democrats seized on that and turned it into "Bush lied." The media picked up the narrative and helped drive it for years, giving the Democrats political cover in both 2006 and 2008 - just as they did for Obama in 2008.
Rove is saying that neither he or Bush understood that the public was going to BUY IT, and they didn't react quickly enough to stop the narrative before it was too late. It didn't take long before it took the full attention of the administration just to keep the Dems from cutting off funding and pulling out. THAT is why Bush compromised on so many policies, irritating conservatives. It wasn't because he wanted to - it was because he had to in order to get enough Democratic support to win in Iraq.
mac| 4.6.10 @ 1:09PM
Akw,
Thank you. That's my take too. I thought the one thing I knew for sure about Bush was that he truly honored and respected the U.S. military, and that his admiration and respect for them was fully reciprocated.
Many of the posters here are forgetting the Iraq Study Group and the tremendous numbers of naysayers that wanted to pull out and stick us with another Vietnam defeat. The ONLY man who could have stopped that was Bush, and to his everlasting credit he stood in the breach and covered the backs of the men and women he sent to war. The Dems were threatening impeachment and Bush just refused to budge. He flat-out faced them down when they held almost all the cards by defying them to take him out.
There were a lot of things I disagreed with Bush about, particularly amnesty, but for his actions in defense of our military against those traitors who would gladly have stabbed them in the back, he will always have my most sincere admiration.
I'd be glad to shake President Bush's hand. I wouldn't spit on BJ or Obastard if they were on fire in the middle of the street. The only thing those two are good for is being clear examples that human trash comes in all colors.
Roux| 4.5.10 @ 11:53PM
Most of who paid attention knew the WMD (I really hate that acronym) were there in Iraq and had been moved to Syria. Why the President didn't defend himself is hard to understand. Maybe he trusted the American people and he was a little too much like his Dad. Who knows but he certainly got some bad advice.
I still thank God that President Bush did what he did to protect this country. Thank you Mr President.
Trotter| 4.6.10 @ 12:04AM
comment after comment... of know-it-alls who didn't and don't have a hat in the ring...
Not a single defender of a great man? Bush was a good president, having to deal with some of the craziest stuff that ever came down the pipe... And he is a great man.
Human with his gifts and faults... We were blessed to have him when we did - your options in the little binary game of politics were Gore and Kerry... 'nuff said about that topic.
Pingback| 4.6.10 @ 12:38AM
How Was Karl Rove…? - Transterrestrial Musings links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Yosemeti Sam| 4.6.10 @ 1:03AM
" ... he is responsible for the election of
Barack Hussein Obama to the presidency
of the United States."
That baloney sandwich - won't fly!
Responsibility for the election of BHO falls
colossally upon BHOs' background-censoring enabling ghost campaign managers - the LBSM PEN1.
The corrupt 'power' of the Leftoid press - clearly evinced!
Perhaps their final treacherous installment in partisan politics - come November!
Dishonorable mention should however encompass assorted guitar strummers and reality-challenged hollowwood idols doping youth to vote for a Pied Piping nirvana persona bearing Greek gifts!
Bystander| 4.6.10 @ 1:34AM
I am and have been a defender of George W. Bush through two political campaigns in the liberal land of Northern California. Proudly, defiantly adorned the back windows of two new cars, during each campaign with Bush/Cheney stickers. Got a furtive thumbs up from gutless people who also supported Bush but "didn't want their car keyed" That about sums it up for Republicans, at least hereabouts, for the most part. They value the material more than the moral
There is little point in arguing with the invincibly stupid, as the guy way back there who said, "didn't he have a quetionable military record?" No, he did not. He volunteered, trained as a pilot, flew training missions and was not sent to Vietnam because the a/c he flew was no longer being used and ... and what is your military records, hotshot? .I could cite it all chapter and verse, but Byron York in NR did it better.
As for George Bush's college grades - it came out much later, that his GPA was better than Al Gore's. And George Bush has an MBA which is a hell of a lot better than experience as a community organizer or doping around in England as a Rhodes Scholar and not finishing your degree, as Bill Clinton did(n't).. I believe Gore flunked out of some schoo - something having to do with Divinity -l but I would have to check that.
As for George Bush's never having succeeded in business - these yahoos that write to this (and other) sites have no idea what or how many businesses George Bush was in and whose money or influence he used. But I can tell you, being from Texas, plenty of multi-millionaires go broke plenty of times before they make it. And often go broke again and make it even bigger the next time. It would be interesting to know what kind of success these "critics" have had in their personal lives - even short of being President of the United States. Manager of the local Burger King, maybe?
Gorge Bush is a good man, a moral man, who served honorably and I shudder to think how fast President Obama would wet his pants if two planes crashed into a building tomorrow. He would be taking longer than his 17 minute plea of insanity today trying to explain higher taxes to that woman. I guess he would say, "Just stay calm, folks, it's only another man-made disaster."
Every time I hear this shuck-and-jiver say "its gonna cost a buncha money", I have to wonder why we don't consider George Bush a veritable Professor Henry Higgins, by comparison.
I know why Obama did not go to a hospital when he was in Afghanistan 6 hours - he was afraid he would run into a corpsman and accidentally lapse, for a fourth time, in pronouncing it "corpse man."
And, for the lady be-rating GWB for running around with Clinton - George Bush is not traipsing around with Bill Clinton socially. He is engaging in a humanitarian effort to get financial assistance to a beleaguered island, devastated by an earthquake. They are two former presidents, not buddies. George Bush cannot help if that he was preceded in office by a priapic lecher.
Mr. Trotter, you and I could defend George Bush till the cows come home and there will still be those worshipers of Obama and believers in "his stash" that is going to pay everyone's bills. It's the Big Rock Candy Mountain Theory of Economic Recovery. You will always have your Yella Dog Democrats and a segment of society with the intellectual capacity of the followers of Jim Jones in Jonestown. And there will always be Conservative Soreheads whining about RINOs.
If I could find a "Miss Me Yet?:" sign I would put it up in my yard - and the city would make me take it down within 24 hours.
But ask yourself this. If we could have another election tomorrow, what Republican could we put up for President? The afterglow of Scott Brown has simmered down. That idiot, Sean Hannity is rallying the troops with "All Hands On Deck" when only a year ago we were walking the plank with John McCain. Hannity's three hour show is an embarrassment to any thinking person - and would not last 15 minutes if he cut out all of the "Y'knows". "In other words.." and "What I'm sayin' is.. .." These are the voices of the Conservative Party. Sarah Palin goes to a Tea Party Convention, has an opportunity to say something meaningful and what does she say? "Support our military (which we can do with Palin's reminding us), drill baby, drill and how's that hopey-changey thing goin' for ya'?". May God have mercy on us.
Ken (Old Texican)| 4.6.10 @ 8:00AM
Bystander,
I want to thank you for your reasonable counter concerning Dubyah.
I literally get chills thinking about Algore as President in 2001, or Kerry in 2004.
Thank you Dubyah, for your service, after being ripped from left and right from day one.
Daniel| 4.6.10 @ 2:41AM
I would not trust any information coming from Laurie Mylroie unless it was backed up by U.S. intel. She essentially drove the animosity towards Iraq after the /93 world trade center bombings, convincing people as high up as David Wolfowitz that Iraq was behind every terrorist attack from 1993 up to and including 9/11.
She convinced the Pentagon that the CIA and FBI didn't know what they were talking about, which is why they started their own little spy club under Doug Feith to dig through raw intelligence and force connections between Iraq and Al Qaeda.
Pingback| 4.6.10 @ 4:59AM
The Man Who Elected Barack Obama : USACTION NEWS links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
CJJ| 4.6.10 @ 9:23AM
Joseph Shattan: can we say Shattan...Scott McLellan....Shattan...Scott McLellan. You're in the same "traitor" company. Now you've got the same label forever!
maverick muse| 4.6.10 @ 9:23AM
"Dr. Laurie Mylroie, one of America's leading students of terrorism in general"--STUDENT oddly applied, implying participant not simply in the learning of but in the doing of terrorism.
maverick muse| 4.6.10 @ 9:37AM
"Karl Rove's assertion, in a chapter" EIGHT YEARS AFTER THE FACT?! It's as if Rove only recently learned of the Syrian receipt of Iraqi WMD.
All in all, given a Syrian kick-back for silence Rove intentionally deceived America. He was in the position influencing THE authority hovering on the grand scheme of unending warfare to insanely "win" the hearts and minds of Islamic jihadists whom Obama clarifies to be the "righteous" Muslim norm.
A NAZI Youth member now an elderly American citizen and professor emeritus ridiculed gullible people who interpret a message not by its content defined but by the tone of voice and facial expression used in delivery which can be sweet and endearing while speaking the most offensive things. Behavioralism is simply a tool for deceivers to manipulate. Act nice while being cruel and according to progressive "compassionate" PC etiquette, you are so kind-- *NOT!
maverick muse| 4.6.10 @ 9:51AM
"There were others who could have sounded the alarm, but regardless, I should have."--Rove
Pathetic bastard. Others WERE sounding the alarm that Rove kept silencing.
Apparently, the neoconservatives have their own means of targeting political dissent from within the Republican Party, demonizing the Constitutional Conservatives who make attaining unconstitutional progressive federal socialism via national threats promoting wars fought on insane terms so much more inconveniently difficult for Bush's administration to achieve and hand over to Obama or whoever comes next. Note well the alignment of Iraq with Iran via Muslim sect supremacists. Study our circumstances in Afghanistan with the propagandized "winning hearts and minds" insane Karzai Rules of Engagement, even now as Karzai threatens to join the Taliban if the US doesn't keep him insulated from the horrible effects of his own corruption!
maverick muse| 4.6.10 @ 10:14AM
Is responsible for?
Naming Rove alone as "the one responsible for Obama's election" is to be stuck on stupid, not taking into account international players including Gadaffi, Soros, and the world's socialist media monopoly. It is sufficient to blame the neoconservative progressive-socialist federal monopoly of power agenda for the demoralization and corruption of the Republican Party, running the loser McCain for potus to maintain the open borders despite organized crime and absolute warfare, kidnappings, torture and murder from Mexicans not only on their side of the border, but inside CA, AZ, NM, and TX terrorizing American citizens and destroying property along with lives. As his own holy war, the neoconservative McCain would maintain our military interventionist perpetual involvement in the Middle East to "win hearts and minds" of political opponents at the point of physical destruction for non-compliance. And McCain would push for a neoconservative socialist universal medical tax funded plan that fails to negotiate the waters of corruption already drowning Medicare/Medicaid. Like all neoconservatives, CONTRARY TO Constitutional Conservatives in the Republican Party, McCain fights tooth and nail to legislate unconstitutional laws rather than address the root of corruption based upon our government's refusal to execute law enforcement, always opting for MORE AND NEW COMPREHENSIVELY REFORMED LAWS with more unconstitutional bureaucracies to create more corruption and empower federal authoritarianism to deny citizens and states Constitutional Rights.
Rove PARTICIPATED in the election of Obama the Marxist.
Rove is responsible for directing the Bush administration to treat all Americans as stupid idiots, incapable of understanding because he feels so intellectually superior being a neoconservative progressive-socialist elitist leading that particular "Political Class" referenced in the recent Rasmussen Poll with over 80% supporting Obama's Marxist work in progress.
somnolence| 4.6.10 @ 11:13AM
I notice that not even Ron Paul wants to forego the pension that many who have no pension in the hinterland of America provide to him through taxes. People, neither major party or the darlings of the Tea Party want to address this issue. It is up to us to make them address it or continue to subsidize their infinite pensions against our limited ones. So in the framing of this particular argument are any of them really worth voting for? Apparently no one on this page yet has a clue. I guess we'll just continue while they get the whole nine yards while we get 50 cents and perhaps an ice cream cone if we're good little peasants. I did hear Neil Cavuto address this yesterday on Fox. He's savvy.
Pingback| 4.6.10 @ 1:28PM
How Karl Rove Got Barack Obama Elected « The IUSB Vision Weblog links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Rod Stanton| 4.6.10 @ 1:35PM
Article missed the point by a mile. GWB + Karl were responsible for the 08 election. But *IE WAS BECAUSE THEY MOVED THE GOP SO FAR TO THE LEFT IN 02 AND CONTINUED MAKING THE GOP THE "NEW" PROGRESSIVE PARTY!*
The Tea Parties of the last 2 years show that America is "mad as Hell and not..." over the growth of the fed. govt. In 15 months I have not seen 1 Tea Party scream about the wars. It is the growth of government that lead to the disasters of 06 + 08!
And since the same liberals that GWB + Karl put in leadership positions of the GOP are still pushing the party to the left Obama will win again in 12!
It is Karl's fault - but because he is an anti-capitalist collectivist. Not the war.
Nick| 4.6.10 @ 1:53PM
Mr. Shattan,
You forgot about trying to push Shamnesty through congress in '06.
Wasn't Rove part of that debacle?
ReaganTMan | 4.6.10 @ 2:27PM
I don't think we realize how powerful the Democrat smear machine really is until we saw what they did to Sarah Palin. Yes, I too questioned why the Bush administration never fired back at the liberals. But that was during an era when conservatives thought that by acting like adults and being above the fray would keep them credible with the American people.
We have now learned that the liberals own the board. As such, we must beat them at their own game. Conservatives have shown an incredible willingness to get into the trenches now and smear their opponents back. This isn't a case where two wrongs make a right. This is a case where the wrong of being punched in the face over and over is now being righted by punching them back in the face over and over instead of sitting there like Bush did and just taking it (this is rhetorical folks, not inciting violence here).
Today, we have Breitbart, talk radio, Fox News, a huge and still growing blogosphere and a twittersphere that realizes our numbers are real. A million real people like us can dissect a few thousand paid AstroTurfers posing as millions. Conservatives are communicating with each other now and taking great solace in the fact that there are so many of us.
The smear campaign against the Tea Party is being seen for what it is. The average American on the street now understands that the media lies to them and that the Tea Party is not a violent racist mob. Two years ago, these same people would have probably told you that Sarah Palin could see Russia from her house. They know better now.
When the "grown-ups" get back in power, we can play by our rules again. Only, this time, civility and being above the fray may require we "spank" the children from time to time instead of leaving them undisciplined and allowing them to take over "the house."
MTB| 4.6.10 @ 4:12PM
No, I don't think so. Everyone wants to blame Bush, Rove, etc. Fact is, Obama lied, and he's good at it. He was willing to say and do anything to get elected. And he did. The press allowed him to lie. Not one journalist (remember, Fox was banned) challenged him on any of his speeches, comments, promises, background, history, birth place, Rev Wright, Farrakhan, etc. Nothing. The Republicans of this country are responsible for nominating McCain (remember Bob Dole? He didn't win, either, against Clinton. You can't put an old-time candidate against a sharp, young democrat. McCain ran a s****y campaign. It almost looked as if his heart wasn't in it. Too old, maybe? Too tired? I don't know, but he didn't do well. Obama reneged on his promise to keep to federal campaign funds, but he was making so much more from the Soros's of the country, that he couldn't help himself. He broke his first promise during the campaign, but it mattered not. McCain, the fool, kept to his word, thinking it would make a difference. It made him look foolish, weak. Howard Dean and the MSM beat the crap out of Bush and his administration. They lied, too, and people started to believe the lies. Bush didn't fight back, and he should have, but he mistakenly believed to give in to the tauntings of the MSM was beneath the office of the President, so he didn't. I wish he, like Reagan, had had a "I paid for this microphone" moment. But, the storm clouds that had rolled in combined with a weak and ineffective McCain campaign assured a democrat presidential victory. It was either going to be Obama or Hillary. Either way, America was going to lose, but maybe not as bad under Hillary as with the current Liar-in-Chief. We need to do it right in Nov and in 2012.
miken| 4.6.10 @ 4:19PM
If they knew the wmd were in syria, why not invade Syria? an official state sponsor of terror with wmd , and the Bush admin sits quiet? Isn't that impeachable behavior?
Bystander| 4.6.10 @ 5:47PM
canuckistani opines:
"The true lesson in this is never elect a president from Texas..." a generalization right up there with Alan Brooks sweeping smack-down of rednecks, from a "poster" who drifts like a dandelion in the wind in his/her pontifications.
If he/she ever discovers where our current leader was born, we can blacklist that state or country, too. Blacklist has no racial connotation and is not meant to insult our mulatto president who dishonors his mother, who was white, every time he calls himself black.
Canuck-istani. Isn't Canuck something to do with Canada?
catchin'up| 4.6.10 @ 6:14PM
Went back to re-read parts of this article. to see what the fuss was about. Was stopped (momentarily) by lead line, "When I served as Senior Speech Writer.. . Oh, geez, that is like all of the people who write TAS adding "PhD" and "Adjunct Professor" to their Reader Comments. It's "Pay attention, I am more than a high school graduate!"
Senior Speech Writer, huh? How many other speech writers were there? How long did he last as a Senior Speech Writer?
If there is a more thin-skinned class of people on the planet than speech writers, I don't know who they might be. They get to thinking they are puppet masters and ventriloquists and the brains of the outfit, when in fact, they have a modest talent of stringing words together suitable to the occasion.
Remember Peggy Noonan's "thousand points of light" and her "boys of Pointe du Lac" (or someplace in Normandy). Then she writes about what she saw on her way to the Revolution - and now in WSJ she sometimes sounds like she is three steps ahead of the butterfly net. Still lyrical, but making no sense.
So, get over it, speech writer guy. Your fifteen minutes have passed. You weren't the president. And your opinion of Karl Rove is no more important than mine. Which is to say, not very important.
Dave Trapped In NYC| 4.6.10 @ 7:24PM
Let's lay off Rove a little here. I mean GWB was a semi conservative ( drugs for the elderly, no child left behind), and could not speak clearly, right or wrong, but he did do a good job with the Supreme Ct and he did take the fight to the bad guys.
The media , The Russians ( moved the WMD's), and a dummy bunch of voters are the real reasons we are in this state.
Dave trapped in NYC| 4.6.10 @ 7:25PM
Oh, and Ted Kennedy is dead too.
Sting| 4.6.10 @ 7:51PM
GW Bush gave Alan Greenspan the Medal of Freedom.
jsallison| 4.6.10 @ 8:17PM
Term limits? already have them, they're called elections. Better to repeal the 17th amendment. Return to having the senators being appointed by the states in whatever manner seems best to them individually; whether by elections, governor or legislative appointment, or nude mud wrestling cage matches. The great steaming mound recently passed would never have made it if the senators weren't attempting to pander for votes.
Answers1| 4.6.10 @ 8:47PM
I buy it.
Pingback| 4.6.10 @ 8:56PM
Tuesday’s Stuff « Countenance Blog links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Intrepid| 4.7.10 @ 2:00AM
Daniel - -the anti-Mylroie guy
Have you read LOOMING TOWER? It might connect a few dots for you and allow you to look less suspiciously at Mylroie. That is, if you can keep up with the characters, their uncles and cousins, their aka names, etc. The one with one eye who almost blew his face off in Indonesia, the loony who took the truck back to the rental and wanted his money back -
If you discount Mylroie, you must discount the author of LOOMING TOWER, also. But apparently you already have.
In fact, what have you read of Mylroie?
Intrepid| 4.7.10 @ 2:11AM
astonerii - I admire your insight in the Machiavellian plot of McCain's to deliberately lose the election.
I thought he could have done it just with that obsequious fox-eating-crap smile of his.
Pingback| 4.8.10 @ 8:16AM
The B&R Thursday Edition | Bob Parks: Black & Right 2010 links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Lightweight| 4.8.10 @ 10:41AM
Joseph Shattan has got it all wrong.Karl Rove did not get Barack Obama elected.Rush Limbaugh got Obama in the White House with his "Operation Choas." He wanted to put Hillary up against Jaun McCain,so he had his lotal listeners switch to Democrat,vote for Hillary in the Primary.The plan was to make her the candidate against McCain,the Limbaugh sheep would switch back to republican and Hillary would loose and McCain win the White House.The DNC saw Hillary could not win so they picked Barack Hussien Obama and Hillary feel in line.
Rush needs to untie that other half of his brain behind his back and use it.I think the half of his brain that he uses is the part with his ego.
Rush played games with the God given gift of Free Elections.And forgot the political opponents are listening to his show.
James Sarafin| 4.8.10 @ 11:25AM
The mainstream media and the Liberals are dedicated to the overthrow of America from within and they saw in Barrack Obama the means to accomplish that result. They started fainting and has spasms run uop their legs when Obama siad he would fundamentally change America because they knew exactly what he meant. The media vetted Obama (a leftover journalistic habit) and deliberately decided not to tell the American people what they discovered because the media knew that Obama would not even have won the nomination if the people were accurately informed.
MattZ| 4.8.10 @ 3:28PM
So this article makes the claim that the reason WMD were not found after the 2003 American invasion in Iraq is because they were secretly transferred to Syria. Would you blame the liberal media for not making this so-called fact widely known?
MZ
Wayne| 4.8.10 @ 3:57PM
This is hysterical..and so sad. I remember when the war started I was laid up sick in bed and as such glued to both the TV and radio reports on all of the stations.
One of the most astounding reports that occurred was about the convoy of people and weapons we caught leaving Baghdad headed for Syria and how when we moved to intercept it we discovered that all of this massive line of heavy trucks that were filled to the top with boxes and equipment were being escorted by Russian Special Forces troops and French and German diplomats.
There were reports about this for an hour or so on CNN and Fox and suddenly the whole story just vanished and even that the on air talent seemed to be a bit shaken for a while afterward.
There is WAY more to this story than we are being told and I did come across rumors years ago that these 3 parties threatened to go to war to help Saddamn if we continued to operate against that convoy or made any sort of a public deal about the fact that they were moving the WMD's out of Iraq to Syria protect the secrets of their efforts in helping him to build these weapons.
David Ben-Ariel | 4.8.10 @ 5:35PM
The weapons of mass destruction are hidden in plain view in the Obamanista regime that is filled with Communists and Socialists. The only thing we have yet to see or have answered today, is "Where is the Birth Certificate"? Now it's not WMD but WBC?
MattZ| 4.8.10 @ 7:07PM
David,
You are a crazy person. Just because other people talk like you, doesn't mean that you're not.
I'd tell you not to worry, since you could always join a nutjob anti-govt militia, but it looks like they're going after those guys, too. Look out for those black helicopters.
MZ
SunMan| 4.8.10 @ 7:05PM
What an incredible bunch of revisionists and liars. Evidently the GOP I grew up with has now become the party of dumbfucks
Ralph Averill| 4.8.10 @ 7:29PM
Naive! One doesn't need to actually make the robo-call push poll; one need only float the rumor that said poll was made. The damage is done. And that is basic Rovian tactics. (see Valerie Plame)Why is Rove reviled? Because he is a low, slinking snake of a human being. The Bushes picked up on this right away and made him one of the family.
RetAF| 4.8.10 @ 8:16PM
I was dumbfounded by Bush's refusal to defend his decisions on WMD, and also Gitmo. My first experience on this board in 2008 was defending Bush's policy of detaining POWs without charges; which is by the way how's it's been done for as long as there have been laws of war.
I'm astounded at how many people still think it's illegal to hold enemy combatants ("legal combatant" or otherwise) in Gitmo. But I was even more astounded that schmucks like me were having to read the Geneva Convention and having to defend our policies instead of our CinC helping out.
EagleJim| 4.13.10 @ 10:44PM
I've always been curious why Bush dropped all defensive politics during his second term and why Rove was preoccupied with policy matters and not put on defensive politics. The lack of a credible defense certainly led to Bush's dismal poll numbers and great harm to the party, perhaps resulting in the Dem/Statist takeover. I don't put it all at Rove's plate, though; Bush and many others should have known that having no defensive political program would result in disaster for Bush and for the party. Hell, I could have told them that. But, here, Rove says it was his responsibility primarily; so be it.)
John Nardo| 4.23.10 @ 10:42PM
Another possibility is that Laurie Mylroie is an apocalyptic crackpot who generated evidence for her paranoid fantasies almost as facilely as Karl Rove spins his Talking Points.
Pingback| 5.12.10 @ 9:10PM
Ed Driscoll » GWB, WMDs, The MSM, And BHO links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Duane R. Clarridge| 6.6.10 @ 2:28PM
Saddam had little WMD and what he had was chemical in nature, but he did have facilities underway to produce WMD. The three dealing with WMD and a fourth, missiles, were referred to as the strategic projects. The nuclear one was code named 555 and there were two reactors in progress and plutonium in nature. 555.1 is still underground near al-Shawkat off the Baghdad Mosul road and 555.2 I believe was or is underground at Taji. No WMD was shipped to Syria for the obvious reasons; however, key components of the four projects and their documentation was sent to the Sudan. By the way, General Sada was a dry hole. Interestingly, few if any of the Iraqis and foreigners who knew the details of these projects were ever debriefed by the UN or the USA, not even the Vietnamese who dug the underground faciltiies by hand and drill and blast in a work for oil deal. I believe the Israelis had a highly placed, knowledgeable agent in the nuclear program who certainly must have provided them with status of the project from time to time. There is much more to the story but space is limited.
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