The Lunacy Of The Left?

Karl Rove thinks that the left are lunatics because we try to be humane. Because we believe in “innocent until proven guilty.” Because we know that Bob Dole was not actually torturing himself when he ran for president. (Watch the video.) Because we are not sadistic animals like Rove.

From Now All These (Torture) Techniques Are Ruined! Karl Rove. by Kel:

But Obama's release of these memos has done a quite startling thing. It has forced people like Rove to take to the airwaves and defend what was done. To hear Rove speak of forced nudity, diet management, sleep deprivation and waterboarding is to hear a torturer attempt to defend his own inhumanity.

Aided by O'Reilly, Rove is actually on the record defending torture. Whether or not the right wing ever accept this, the actions they are describing are regarded as torture under international law. Obama is giving them rope and they are wrapping it around their own necks on national television.

Listening to what Rove is saying here is astonishing. If they played this tape in any international court of law there would be no argument as to his guilt, as he is practically confessing to the crime, whilst insisting that the actions which he is describing are not crimes at all.

It may not be torture, but it is hard to watch O’Reilly and Rove here:


O’Reilly criticizing others for their lack of journalistic standards is absurd. It would be laughable if it weren’t actually tragic. Listen to the entire video for two wonderful examples of O’Reilly’s journalistic abilities. He gets Eric Holders first name wrong and he doesn’t know who Richard Armitage is. Are we suppossed to trust O’Reilly with the big facts, if he can’t even get the little facts right?

How can Rove possible use Bob Dole as an example here? Dole was a free man. He was exercising his own free will. Compare that to someone locked up in a hell-hole without knowledge of what will happen to them. Absolutely, completely absurd.

Why are people being given airtime on television and being paid to defend torture? How low we have sunk.

Karl Rove Or Streakers?

I would pick “inebriated and naked bankers” over Karl Rove any day of the year. No contest.

On second thought, screw all of them. I’m not very happy with mortgage bankers these days either.

From Protests and Hecklers Have Mortgage Bankers Longing for Good Old Days by Jesse McKinley:

It was just another business-as-usual day at the annual convention of the nation’s mortgage bankers: a few panels, a few presentations and an attempted abduction of Karl Rove.

Mr. Rove, the Republican strategist and former adviser to President Bush, was accosted onstage during a convention panel here on Tuesday morning by a protester who tried to handcuff and arrest him “for treason.” Mr. Rove tried to elbow her away before she was taken offstage.

No one was injured and no arrests were made, but the stage-storming was just the latest outburst at an event that usually packs all the excitement of a mortgage calculator. On Monday, another panel was interrupted by protesters demanding a moratorium on foreclosures, and hecklers screamed at attendees through bullhorns outside.

The convention was booked for San Francisco well before the national mortgage meltdown, the $700 billion bailout and all the recriminations between. But the rancor of the protests and the general malaise in the mortgage business has left more than a few conventioneers, like Gregory B. Lucas, a mortgage broker from Pomona, Calif., fondly remembering the good old days of the industry’s gatherings.

“We had streakers during the 1990s, but that was a joyful, happy thing,” said Mr. Lucas, who had been coming to such events for 20 years and recalled how a group of inebriated and naked bankers had once entertained the crowd. “But now everyone is blaming us for everything.”

Read the rest here.

Maybe if they had kept their clothes on and stayed sober we wouldn’t have had a subprime mortgage meltdown.

News From The Twilight Zone

From Rove: McCain went 'too far' in ads:

Former Bush adviser Karl Rove said Sunday that Sen. John McCain had gone "one step too far" in some of his recent ads attacking Sen. Barack Obama.

Rove has leveled similar criticism against Obama.

"McCain has gone in some of his ads -- similarly gone one step too far," he told Fox News, "and sort of attributing to Obama things that are, you know, beyond the '100 percent truth' test."

The Obama campaign immediately leaped on the quote.

"In case anyone was still wondering whether John McCain is running the sleaziest, most dishonest campaign in history, today Karl Rove -- the man who held the previous record -- said McCain's ads have gone too far," said campaign spokesman Tommy Vietor, in a statement sent to reporters minutes after Rove's on-air comments. Rove masterminded both of President Bush's successful White House bids.

Rove said both candidates need to "be careful" about their attacks on each other.

"They ought to -- there ought to be an adult who says, 'Do we really need to go that far in this ad? Don't we make our point and won't we get broader acceptance and deny the opposition an opportunity to attack us if we don't include that one little last tweak in the ad?' " he said.

Turd Blossom Lets Loose

“Bush’s Brain” does not strike me as being any more intelligent than Bush’s brain.

From Rove: Obama's inexperienced; Biden's a 'big, blowhard doofus' by Jessica Alaimo:

Maine's Republican delegation got a surprise visit from former White House political operative Karl Rove at its convention breakfast this morning.

During his speech, he talked up John McCain's Republican presidential bid and criticized Democratic nominee Barack Obama for his inexperience.

When the topic of running mates came up, he referred to U.S. Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) as a "big, blowhard doofus."

Can you imagine what a conversation between George W. Bush and Karl Rove in the Oval Office must have been like?

And they were supposed to be the ones who were going to return dignity to the Oval Office.

Meet Karl Rove's Replacement

Karl Rove has been replaced by a hurricane. His name is Gustav. Karl Rove no longer tells Bush what to do. Gustav does.

From What Gustav Does by Noemie Emery:

(1) Gets Bush out of St. Paul, where he would have given a speech that the media and the Democrats would have pounced on, and puts him in the eye of the storm, doing the nation’s business, where he will be welcomed and greeted by friendly Republican governors.

“Doing the nation’s business” makes it sound like he will be crapping on the nation. Haven’t we already had enough of this from Bush?

Read 2 through 9 here, if you dare, to find out what other politically strategic things Gustav does. You will end up wondering if Noemie Emery realizes that Gustav is actually a hurricane. Karl Rove may have been a destructive force of nature, like Gustav, but he really is a person.

What will the Republicans do after Gustav is gone?

Rove For All

From A Great Observation About Washington from (Duh) Henry Waxman by Jonathan Stein:

Henry Waxman may try to eliminate Karl Roves from future White Houses. Why, he observes, should the presidential administration be able to use federal funds to pay a nakedly political staffer whose only job is to position the president for reelection? Congress isn't allowed such luxuries.

What will probably be the result of this? My bet is that every Congressperson will have a “Karl Rove” (“a nakedly political staffer”) in the future. Now, if they all were naked political staffers it wouldn’t bother me as much. As long as none of them actually looked like Karl Rove.

Fox News And Karl Rove

From That Pundit on Fox News? An Upstart Named Rove by Jim Rutenberg and Jacques Steinberg:

George Stephanopoulos’s abrupt move 11 years ago from the Clinton White House to ABC News — initially as a partisan member of a Sunday political panel who would also do some reporting — raised hackles inside and outside the network.

Speaking at the time to The American Journalism Review, the Washington Post columnist David S. Broder complained about what he saw as a worrisome trend. “One day they are calling journalists to write favorably about their prominent political patrons,” Mr. Broder said, “and the next minute they are sitting at the table with journalists and indistinguishable from the journalists.”

This year, there has been hardly a hiccup as the cable news networks and other outlets have sought to stoke interest in the presidential race — already a huge ratings boon — by signing up strategists who have either left politics only recently or still work in campaigns, a detail that is usually shared with the audience but not always.

Read more here.

Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don't

Karl Rove doesn’t like Barack Obama. This is perceived by me as a good thing for Barack Obama and the United States of America.

From Rove slams Obama over 'bitter' comments, flag pin by Alexander Mooney:

Rove, who does not have an official role within John McCain's presidential campaign or at the Republican National Committee, also took Obama to task for recently wearing a flag pin.

"It is distracting to say in a Democratic primary when you are trying to cozy up to Moveon.org that an American flag on your lapel is a quote 'substitute' for true patriotism," Rove said. "Belittling all those who care to wear our country's flag, calling them false patriots, and then when you focus on the general election, like this week, start to showing up with an American flag on your lapel again. That's distracting."

Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. How stupid is that?

Karl Rove And The University Of Iowa

Hooray to some of the audience members who who gave Karl Rove a hard time during his speech at the University Of Iowa on Sunday. At least he got a taste of what some Americans think of him. Boo to the University of Iowa for paying him $40,000.00 to speak there.

Here are some choice bits from Rove taunted at University of Iowa:

At one point during the speech, Rove reportedly lashed out at some of the students, saying, "You got a chance to ask your questions later and make your stupid statements, let me make mine."

Police also were forced to remove two people after they tried to perform a citizen’s arrest on Rove for what they said were his crimes while a member of the Bush Administration.

Toward the end of the speech a member of the crowd yelled, "Can we have our $40,000 back?"

Rove replied, “No, you can't.”

Karl Rove And Stink, Part Three

Yesterday I posted about Karl Rove and what he had to say about the economy. I’m going to revisit what he said on Fox News once again today. By way of ThinkProgress.org this is what Mr. Rove said:

Last night on Fox News, former Bush aide Karl Rove claimed that the economy is partly responsible for his former boss’s record low approval ratings. But according to Rove, the media — not Bush’s disastrous policies — are to blame:

O’REILLY: The negativity toward President Bush is Iraq driven?

ROVE: I think it’s principally. I think the economy — the media has been beating the drum for years and years and years that the economy stinks. And after a while, that begins to color people’s attitudes.

Today while reading the news I found out that Ben Bernanke is saying that the economic outlook is worse.

Yo Karl, Ben Bernanke works for the U.S. government, not the news media! His drum beating might be coloring people’s attitudes too.

Karl Rove And Stink, Part Two

Sheryl Crow recounts her encounter with Karl Rove:

I’m shaking even talking about it again. I feel like I got his stink on me.

Karl must really know how to impress the ladies.

Karl Rove And Stink, Part One

So Karl Rove thinks that we wouldn’t notice on our own how bad the economy is. We wouldn’t see the foreclosure signs all over our neighborhood, or the price of gas at the pump, or how tough it is to get a mortgage at the bank, or that our stocks, mutual funds, and 401k’s are down, or what our credit card statement says, etc, etc, etc…

Last night on Fox News, former Bush aide Karl Rove claimed that the economy is partly responsible for his former boss’s record low approval ratings. But according to Rove, the media — not Bush’s disastrous policies — are to blame:

O’REILLY: The negativity toward President Bush is Iraq driven?

ROVE: I think it’s principally. I think the economy — the media has been beating the drum for years and years and years that the economy stinks. And after a while, that begins to color people’s attitudes.

It’s only because the media tells us, because Karl thinks we’re too stupid to notice on our own. Hey Karl! You’ve hung out with that idiot president of ours for too long. Not all of the American people are as stupid as he is.

Also, I’m going on the record here and saying DON’T VOTE FOR JOHN MCCAIN unless you like getting screwed:

Yet the right wing continues to downplay the faltering economy. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) recently blamed it all on the American people, saying that it’s just “psychological.”