Posted on 04/04/2015 8:29:48 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican
The former deputy chief of staff for the George W. Bush administration caused some controversy during an appearance at UConn on Tuesday.
Karl Rove attended the university to discuss the upcoming 2016 elections as part of an event held by the UConn College Republicans and Young America’s Foundation. He spoke for about a half-hour, and then was asked a variety of political questions.
However, the question that most stood out came from an Iraq War veteran who requested that Rove apologize for the lives lost as a result of the war America started. Here is the full question from Private Ryan Henowitz:
(Excerpt) Read more at foxct.com ...
How anyone could think of Rove as anything but a vile contemptible rat is a mystery. Pudgy, arrogant Karl Rove is the scourge and mortal enemy of the Tea Party and conservatives. Have you heard Mark Levin’s spot on appraisal of Karl Rove? Levin reserves a special circle in hell for Rove. Brent Bozell is spot on, too, re Rove.
Karl Rove Is Ruining the GOP
By BRENT BOZELL
October 07, 2014
Karl Rove recently tried to advise Republicans on how the party can more effectively take back the Senate in November. He made two main suggestions.
One was that Republican candidates must “make the case for electing someone new who will be a check and balance in the Senate on Mr. Obama and his agenda, rather than returning a Democratic loyalist who toes his line.” Rove’s second suggestion was that the party should “offer a positive, optimistic conservative agenda to make independents who disapprove of Mr. Obama comfortable voting Republican.”
Rove is right on both counts, especially about offering a positive and optimistic conservative agenda.
But there’s one big problem. This advice is coming from Karl Rove.
Rove has never cared about conservatism and has spent his entire career opposing any Republican who might be successful in promoting or implementing a conservative agenda.
Rove belongs to the same tradition of moderates who fought Barry Goldwater in 1964, who pushed back against Ronald Reagan in 1976 and did everything they could to stop Reagan again in 1980. They said Reagan would be a disaster for the party and even the country.
Today, Reagan is one of the most well-remembered American presidents and remains the standard-bearer for what it means to be a conservative Republican, popularizing a small government message that GOP moderates said was too extreme to resonate with voters. As with Rove’s predictions about Mitt Romney’s chances in 2012, GOP moderates couldn’t have been more wrong about Reagan.
Rove and his ilk have opposed every significant conservative leader who has ever dared to challenge liberal or moderate Republican orthodoxy. A history lesson: Moderates wanted Gerald Ford and then George H.W. Bush over Ronald Reagan in 1976 and 1980. Similarly, Karl Rove and his friends wanted Arlen Specter over Pat Toomey in 2010. They wanted Charlie Crist over Marco Rubio in 2010. They wanted David Dewhurst over Ted Cruz in 2012.
Karl Rove kneecapped tea party candidates in 2010. He called Rick Perry’s policy prescriptions, many which have had great success in Texas, “toxic.” Rove said Sarah Palin lacked “gravitas.” He has said Rand Paul “causes GOP squeamishness.”
And what does he think about conservatives in general? He’s called us the Republican Party’s “nutty fringe.” This is the same man Media Matters has dubbed the Republican “voice of reason.”
When Rove founded his “Conservative Victory Project” last year, conservatives everywhere laughed. We knew this was a man who had spent his whole life making sure conservative ideas never saw the light of day.
Rove basically admitted as much, when he said his reason for forming this group was to “protect” the GOP from challenges from “far-right” conservatives and tea party enthusiasts.
In other words, Rove wanted to continue, true to form, to ensure that conservatives would have no influence on the Republican Party.
It’s now time conservatives make sure Karl Rove no longer has any influence on their party.
The last thing the GOP needs right now and in the future is for the anti-conservative professional political class to continue infecting its ranks, and the last thing we need, as conservatives, is having these same moderates infiltrating ours.
As a party, we must work together as a coalition to win elections. This has never been in dispute. But that coalition can no longer be comprised of conservatives always being told to stand down in promoting their agenda, while moderates like Rove continue to lose elections in spectacular fashion.
Conservatives have had enough. Our days of playing second fiddle to moderates are over. We should always be open to good and helpful advice — but with the hindsight and history of knowing that none of it will ever come from Karl Rove.
Brent Bozell is chairman of ForAmerica, an online network of grass-roots conservatives.
Iraq was a waste and Tokyo Rove is no friend of conservatives. I love watching that bastard squirm.
You say it destabilized the middle east.
It was stable when bush left.
When bush came into office, Clinton had our navy lobbing missiles into Iraq in order to get the focus off his bent penis.
Obama kicked it into gear with the muslim brotherhood in Egypt, turning Lybia into war lord central, and arming AlQaida.
Just how stunningly ignorant you are about the issue, stunningly. The Iraqi issue did not start with 2003. The US was invited in with the full conscience and asking by the United Nations in response to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in July of 1990.
All were attacked during the buildup to counter the invading force from going further on to the oil fields of Saudi Arabia. The use of Scud rockets were directed at the US forces and some were killed when one hit a temporary barracks of the US Army. Scuds were also launched and landed at several places in Saudi Arabia and also in Israel.
We would have vanquished the major portion of the then retreating Iraqi armor, but that courageous “Colonel” General Powell (RitaX reference) couldn’t stomach the images of the Road to Basra just making the news that he convinced GHWB to pull “Stormin” Norman Schwartzkopf’s leash and stop the just about to commence obliteration of that force. The 24th Mechanized and the 82nd/101st Aviation Assault had them triple flanked on the road to Nasiriah and because of the courageous actions of that man who became the SoS for GWB, they got away to fight another day that resulted in us having to go back in and do it all over again.
So, with that little history lesson, do you care to revise and extend your remarks? But first, how about a little history lesson.
http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=45404
http://armylive.dodlive.mil/index.php/2013/02/operation-desert-storm/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Gulf_War
http://www.warchronicle.com/iraq/news/timeline_two_wars.htm
You are right, 100% right (post #6). Unfortunately, many conservatives confuse Bush the man (very nice guy) with Bush the president (just awful). Those conservatives will pile on you. They refuse to see Bush’s many mistakes.
Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
Maybe in terms of stirring up the conflicts between Shi'a and Sunni Muslims already going on in the Middle East for many centuries, you may have a point. But in terms of US casualties, the Iraq war pales in comparison to the number of GI's lost in Vietnam and it didn't get us anywhere in the end. After our twenty year involvement, we didn't win. We had to pull out. And we had over 58,000 casualties. Iraq, on the other hand, last only 8 years and cost us just over 3,500 precious lives.
I know you can't compare the two wars as apples and apples, because all conflicts are unique unto themselves. But I believe Vietnam will go down in history as a far bigger blunder in our foreign policy than the Iraq War just based on the numbers of casualties we had versus the final outcome.
There is something in what you say, HotHunt. But consider this. Communism did not spread throughout Southeast Asia after Saigon fell. There was no domino effect.
The loss of lives there was tragic, extremely tragic. But there was no regional political upheaval after Saigon fell.
Contrast this with today. The Iraqi War took the focus off the war that had to be fought and won, the one in Afghanistan. And one result of that is radical islam is on the march, in the Middle East, in eastern Africa, in north Africa, in Indonesia. The radicals are emboldened by Bush II's failures. The radicals see themselves as owning the future. And Iraq caused the West to be war-weary. There is no real stomach to take the radicals on.
That's why I see Iraq as a bigger blunder than Vietnam.
I fault him for not decisively finishing it.
Illogical. A nation that requires a large US military presence within its borders to survive is not, by definition, "stable".
The US population still does not understand the threat of radical Islam to western civilization. Bush said this conflict against radical Islam would go on for decades, not just one, short, clean war. Obama, on the other hand, has prematurely claimed he had defeated al-Qaida, and has pulled out of Iraq and Afghanistan. This weak behavior has emboldened the radicals to make their move, now that they know Obama will not try very hard to stop them. And they have been right. He's seems more interested in his golf game than his foreign policy. The fact that our current president has downplayed these conflicts has not led the population to understand what really needs to be done to defeat these radicals. This is what a real leader has to do.
While Obama lulls the low information voters to sleep with all of his freebies and downplaying these "isolated, workplace violence incidents" or these "lone wolf threats", our enemies in Islam are expanding and getting more emboldened and savage everyday. When he is capitulating to our arch enemy Iran and kicking are long-time ally, Israel, under the bus, he seems obvious to the "Death to America" and "Wipe Israel Off the Map" pronouncements by Iran as if he's hard of hearing. When he can't even bring himself to say who our enemies are, as radical Islamic terrorists, he doesn't send out a very strong message to our enemies that he is willing to fight very hard to defeat them.
Bush may carry some burden in this issue, but Obama owns it.
No, I'd argue that honor goes to one of your heroes - Johnson, Kennedy, Roosevelt, etc.
What quote do you have that Bush says Iraq was responsible for 9/11?
Absolutely true! My beef with Bush is that he held back and misdirected some of that power (including the power of propaganda). It was for the noblest of reasons, but that was a major mistake. As for Obama...the best you can say is that he is lazy and clueless.
The US population still does not understand the threat of radical Islam to western civilization.
Again we agree. These times call for another Ronald Reagan, another Maggie Thatcher, and another John Paul II, simultaneously, as before. Sadly, we have nothing like that now. And so the West will pay very dearly.
You’re full of shit.
I fault him for not decisively finishing it.
THIS and wasting blood and treasure playing globalist nation building games with a group of perennially warring arab moon god tribes.
Bush knew the real threat has always been Iran, and by the time 2008 rolled around, Iran had more than a few (44, I think?) US Bases to look at and think twice about things. Bush never stated it, and never needed to.
(Sad that some idiot put the important target countries on the map in sea-water-blue, SMH)
You weren't there bro and everyone who was volunteered............Guess they're all chicken hawks too, eh?
Rather, I think he is as smart as a fox and very calculating. He is getting away with most of his damage and destruction so far. His plan to "fundamentally transform the greatest country on the face of the earth (or in the history of the world)" is progressing like clockwork.
No.
Truth has a stinging bite and profanity here rather that intellectual discussion has the “Abuse Button” —Adios amigo.
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