Posted on 07/16/2010 6:44:00 PM PDT by advance_copy
The decision to ‘look forward, not back’ on Iraq was a profound mistake.
In Thursday’s Wall Street Journal, Karl Rove offered a candid confession. His biggest mistake as a top White House adviser, he wrote, was to endorse the decision not to mount a vigorous defense when Democrats accused President Bush of lying the nation into the invasion of Iraq. After amply demonstrating that those who leveled this shameful charge had themselves previously insisted that Saddam was a WMD menace, Rove explains:
At the time, we in the Bush White House discussed responding but decided not to relitigate the past. That was wrong and my mistake: I should have insisted to the president that this was a dagger aimed at his administration’s heart. What Democrats started seven years ago left us less united as a nation to confront foreign challenges and overcome America’s enemies.
I like and admire Rove. Besides being whip-smart, he is a stand-up guy. It is no surprise to find him holding himself to a high standard, during what were very trying times, and concluding that he could have done things better. The country would be a better place if all of us were capable of such humility and grace. And he is surely right: “Look forward, not back,” as the policy was called, was a terrible mistake. The libel that an American president intentionally misled his country into an unnecessary war, that thousands died because “Bush lied,” deeply wounded the administration and turned our public discourse toxic.
(Excerpt) Read more at article.nationalreview.com ...
The political consequences have been catastrophic. Pelosi, Reid, and Obama are all the result.
Far worse is the affect on our troops fighting in Iraq. When public support collapsed, the enemy in Iraq was bolstered by it. As the wave of discontent swept Democrats into office, the danger to our forces in Iraq increased.
Before too much is made of the “mistake” of taking the high road, let’s look a bit deeper at those who took the low road and shoved that dagger into the heart of the Presidency. There you’ll find the real traitors.
Well, duh.
I had problems with Rove who struck me as being very weak on the right to life and other social issues on which Bush was comparatively strong—but sometimes persuaded to support losers for the House and Senate.
It was glaringly obvious that this was Bush’s worse problem: his refusal to stand up to his critics and answer them back—not just on Iraq but on everything else.
If it was Rove who advised him to behave that way, then Rove was a lot stupider than I thought. Not only lacking in principles at times, but just plain stupid.
Stuff happens. Everything becomes clear when you look back at it over time.
Afer the inaugural speech in 2005, Bush pretty much put Iraq aside. Put all his energy into the social security thing. Everyone could see that the thing was far from over., but he just let things drift.
It was down right stupid Karl.
I agree that it was that, an awful mistake. But, in the final analysis, I'm not sure it would have made a dimes worth of difference.
George Bush was not Ronald Reagan, and nothing underscored that more than his inability to cut through the opacity of the media, and directly reach the everyman. Bush's horrific communication skills were his undoing, not the war and not the reluctance to defend the war. Why? Because even if he and Rove decided to fight, Bush just didn't posses the skill-set to make it happen.
This should be a cautionary tale for our future prospective nominees - Republican politicians, and especially Republican Presidents have to be near-perfect communicators, and media managers. They cannot fall victim to hair-helmeted television journalists. They have to control their message, and they have to control their interviews. Bush couldn't, and he didn't.
Sorry, too late and the damage has been done...and more.
To say that saddam had no WMD is to say he did not drop WMD on the Kurds.
The bush critics are pro genocide revisionists.
Key word in this sentence is 'we'! Many were in on the decision not to counter the left's attacks and Rove was only one of them. And yes, their weakness gave us Bohama, Reed, and Palosi.
It was definitely a big mistake, but this uniter not divider and compassionate conservative language. We are going to follow the Constitution as it is written with amendments should have been the standard. They spent too much money and pushed expansion of programs like No Child Left Behind, prescription drugs and the fact that he added $4.8 Trillion in Debt during his 8 years.
Another big one was the border, instead of pushing amnesty after 9-11 he should have insisted on building the fence and having the personnel to stop illegals from getting in. It would have eliminated a lot of the chaos that were having to deal with now.
With all of the multiculturalism infesting this country, why could we not have gotten seppuku?
Do the right thing Rove. At least shut up.
But that can get you Mitt Romney. An actual conservative Mitt Romney would be perfect.
The political consequences have been catastrophic. Pelosi, Reid, and Obama are all the result.
Far worse is the affect on our troops fighting in Iraq. When public support collapsed, the enemy in Iraq was bolstered by it. As the wave of discontent swept Democrats into office, the danger to our forces in Iraq increased.
Well stated and I totally agree.
Otherwise known as, “the new tone”...Pure idiocy from day one and it only got worse when we lost the House and Senate as a result.
I don’t know. Even if he were reliably conservative, I’m uncertain about Mitt Romney’s hair.
Really? Mitt Romney is the only Republican politician you know who doesn't sound like a babbling moron when being interviewed by hostile journalists?
Have you heard Haley Barbour, Jim DeMint, John Thune, Eric Cantor, Bobby Jindal, Tim Pawlenty, Bob McDonnell, Chris Christie and probably score more. Those guys all sound pretty comfortable answering tough complicated questions from hostile journalists, and they do it in sentences longer than what will fit on a bumper sticker or a tweet.
This way-too-little, too-late admission just diminished Rove in my opinion. If he had a pulse back then he knew this was wrong and they let the media and the Democrat party walk all over President Bush and others, yet didn’t utter a peep.
So why now, Karl? Maybe you feel better admitting you dropped the ball, bigtime? We don’t.
I wish it were so. Looks to me that Rove is a bean-(vote-)counter. He can name the results of the most recent polls, county by county in a heartbeat. But in all his years in the WH and all the subsequent years on Fox news I have never heard him even thinking strategically.
Do you need a degree in political science to know that American people will NOT support a war unless it is clearly and convincingly communicated? It's not that Rove has failed in that communication --- he never tried. And that's because the polls did not show it to be a problem -- yet. And after Bush wins the second term, what is put at the top of the agenda? Privatization of pension plans. Not a flat tax, not scrapping our unwieldy Byzantine tax law that saps the juices from our economy. Millions of illegals are pouring over our borders but, instead of closing them, we think of social security. Rome is burning and Nero is laughing. "The American people gave me political capital, and I intend to spend it," said Bush. On what? I gave my small portion of that capital to secure the borders and make the government smaller.
Recently, I switch away from Fox whenever Rove appears: we had enough of bean counting. It's time to return to conservative principles and stop listening to mediocre minds such as Rove.
While it is true the Bush Administration failed to defend itself, and the rest of us indirectly, it was the Democrats that decided to wage a vicious, reprehensible, back-stabbing, unpatriotic, hypocritical attack on Bush, and the rest of us.
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