Posted on 04/05/2010 6:08:23 AM PDT by RobinMasters
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.
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
The MSM elected Obama...just as every policy, and every syllable and tone the Republicans use is in response to the MSM.
I always believed it to be true. If I'm not mistaken, Saddam was aided by the Russians in this endeavor.
Sure, speechwriters will have the president’s ear. But the intelligence community does as well. And they’re the ones ‘in the know’. Coming from speechwriters, this stuff is all hearsay and intellectual opinion. And as you point out, not a little was bad advice.
But there’s a broader story here than just Rove taking blame for the failure to counter Democrat/MSM disinformation. I simply don’t believe it was just Bush’s political adviser who let the president down on this. And I’m not confining my suspicions to the speechwriter community.
Well at least he is honest about that.
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?Yea, how come?
Always mystified me that the GOP didn't fight back on this
He is right though. The Bush administration did very little to counter Democratic Party/MSM accusations that Bush “lied”. Plenty of conservatives were very annoyed that the Bush people were not actively countering this propaganda.
The author claims that you have to spend a few minutes in Rove’s company to come to that conclusion. I suspect neither you nor I have done that, nor ever will.
I’m with your wife, in that (as my readers know) my idea of being a Christian in public is not of the “lie back and think of England” variety, but more of the Elijah, Paul, Luther, Knox, Calvin variety.
I never understood why they didn’t keep reminding people of the satellite photos. It seemed like the strongest piece of evidence they had.
The only reason I can think of that makes any sense is they didn’t want to have to respond to the question, “well, why aren’t you attacking Syria, then?”
“Always mystified me that the GOP didn’t fight back on this”
Bush & Co are and always were Globalists. It is not nor ever was about America, but about NWO and their position in the scheme of things.
It is now time to take the GOP out of the hands of the Globalists and NWO bunch, out of the hands of the RINO’s, and put it into the hands of real conservatives, those how value the Constitution and what our forefathers began some 234 years ago.
Welcome to FR.
>0.0<
So then why is ROVE a progressive?..
You know like the CLintoon's, "HW"+his father, Obama, John McQueeq, Carter, and anybody elected from Maine or Vermont..
Absolutely correct, great points!
“The author claims that you have to spend a few minutes in Rove’s company to come to that conclusion. I suspect neither you nor I have done that, nor ever will.”
I have read enough of Rove’s statements over the years. I don’t need to talk to him in the flesh.
I, and many others, have been saying the exact same thing here for years.
George Bush sat there like a punching bag for eight years, never having the guts to stand up and defend himself as lie after lie after lie from the rats and their newsrooms went left unanswered. Bush’s unwillingness to stand up and fight was an eight-year slap in the face to his bewildered supporters, including me.
The result was that the Democrat candidate could successfully tie his opponent to the easily-smeared punching bag, Bush, while the Republican candidate had little choice but to distance himself from Bush.
Thanks!
Good points.
Also try blaming those that close their eyes to what we say is happening to our country because they just cannot face the truth - they prefer their mundane daily activities.
Also try blaming the democrats who have consistently moved their agenda forward an inch at a time. While we - on the other hand - scorn our own leaders when they choose a different option than we would have chosen.
Our main problem is that we will not work toward an objective a step at a time at the cost of our personal preferences. The democrats have to tow the party line. And, that is why they beat us continually. We have seen education in the last 20 years turn to liberalism saturating the minds of the future leaders of America.
We did nothing.
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."I always assumed there was an extremely complex answer involving international diplomacy, classified information, a desire to keep terrorists from finding weapons, and possibly something embarrassing for the administration. Whatever the reason it had to be way beyond my level of understanding. But, no. Turns out it was just one overworked political guy who was so consumed with the day to day operations that he missed the most important political issue of the decade. I must say, I'm disappointed with the answer to my greatest question. Barack Obama and his army of organizers will never have this problem.
Yup. It was all over FR at the time. Of course the MSM gave it very little play.
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