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Just who do you guys think Karl Rove is, anyway?

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mikehiggins Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-17-04 04:35 PM
Original message
Just who do you guys think Karl Rove is, anyway?
People who have spent months now complaining that the Democratic party establishment has rolled over and played dead for George Bush are also fond of claiming that Karl Rove will eat up Wes Clark for breakfast and shit out his four stars after lunch.

What is wrong with you people?

Folks, without the inept Gore campaign, the lunatic Nader campaign, Jeb Bush's illegal disenfranchishment of thousands of black and white voters and, finally, the intervention of the Supreme Court, Rove would be a dime-a-dozen lobbyist right now.

Brilliant? Sleazy is more like it. Even Dick Morris is better at this game than Rove who seems almost a poster boy for anal-retentive wonks everywhere.

And this is the guy you are all scared of?

What is wrong with you people?

Tell me one thing that Rove has done to justify his eminence as the Dark Prince of Politics? Even Novak has done more to earn that title than Rove. Hell, Novak even outed a CIA agent with impunity.

I'm sorry, boys and girls, it just won't wash. We can't make decisions based on what Karl Rove may or may not do to our nominee. We have to make decisions on what is right for our nation, and our Party.

Come out of hiding. The monster isn't in the closet. He isn't even a monster. He's just a guy whose whole life is tied up in the game.

Where is Mrs. Rove? All the little Rove-lits? Is this guy even married? Does he date? What are we dealing with?

What are you afraid of?
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jpgpenn Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-17-04 04:37 PM
Response to Original message
1. Rove is an overrated ...
Nazi egghead. I agree with your opinion completely.
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cthrumatrix Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-17-04 04:57 PM
Response to Reply #1
11. it's the layer of corporatism they are part of...like an octupus
layers of levels of decepit, knowledge and power....they are part of it.
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WhoCountsTheVotes Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-18-04 01:42 PM
Response to Reply #11
44. Maybe the corporatists have turned on him?
His bumbling is no longer useful?
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Turkw Donating Member (521 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-18-04 11:42 PM
Response to Reply #1
52. He's the Friggin Anti-Christ, he hates Democracy, will do anything to
keep the people of this country make an informed decision and vote. Lie, Cheat, and Steal our votes, our country, our future.

He is the BEST thing we have going for us, we should dig up every story detailing every crappy thing he has ever done and teach the people of America to hate it all. We need to rehash and repeat every mean spirited, nasty, hateful thing he has done and make him a symbol of manipulation, make his name the definition of smear. Use that name to paint every right wing talking head as the piece of shit liars they are.

He makes Newt G. look like a well meaning simpleton. The Repubs dropped Newt because he was so unlikeable. We need to make Rove a burden they will want to drop like a hot brand, after they have been burned by him.

He IS Bush's Brain, if you hate Bush, you have to hate Rove, 'cause uncle Karl is what put the boy dunder in office.

Who do I think Karl Rove is? A Traitor to the ideals of this country!

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Cuban_Liberal Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-17-04 04:39 PM
Response to Original message
2. I'm not scared of him.
I am, however, completely aware of what he's capable of doing. That's why I tend to view so many of the things supporters of other candidates claim make Candidate X 'unelectable' rather cynically; Rove is going to try to smear whoever we nominate, and we have no perfect people in the running. Every single candidate we have has flaws that Rove can and will try to exploit. Not one of our candidates is ten feet tall and bullet-proof.

I prefer to focus on the positives each has, when it's time to select a nominee.
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mikehiggins Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-17-04 04:54 PM
Response to Reply #2
7. True enough but neither side has a perfect candidate to offer.
We can only do the best we can with the best we can. The primary is the way we find out who the majority of concerned Democrats think is the best we can find.

As to Rove, does he really compare to Trippi or some of the other folks working on our side? There are any number of people working on various campaigns that are just as smart, just as vicious, just as cunning as he is. And there are hundreds of thousands of people out there willing to work and contribute for one cause, to bring down this pResident and put an American back in the White House.

My point is that fear of Rove is like when my little boy was afraid of monsters in his closet. I got him a really big Felix the Cat doll and told him the imaginary cat would protect him from the imaginary monster. Worked like a charm.

The democrats have some real alley cats in our camp, and Rove? He only exists in our imaginations.

Smears? Bring 'em on. This time WE are the good guys!
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Cuban_Liberal Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-17-04 04:55 PM
Response to Reply #7
8. Trippi or Lehane would both be more than equal to Rove.
And you're right--- this time WE are the good guys!

ABB! :)
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Khephra Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-17-04 04:39 PM
Response to Original message
3. I'm with you
Edited on Sat Jan-17-04 04:40 PM by khephra
All the crap that Dean supporters have had to take in re. to Rove is just silly, or it would be if there weren't so many people here that believed in the superiority of Rove. Some posters here give credit to Rove if the sun comes up and they believe that he's behind every action in every political circle. Rove controls the Democrats either through his cunning use of (fill-in-the-name of any of the candidates) or through his ability to plan everything that ever happens politically in this country.

Hogwash.

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Pax Argent Donating Member (350 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-18-04 12:43 PM
Response to Reply #3
41. The reason for the belief in his ability
is based on the product that he has sold. He's been selling George W, a stuffed shirt's stuffed shirt, for years and winning at doing it. The man could market sand to Arabs.

That being said it doesn't hurt to have corporate America and the media lined up behind you. If the money and powers-that-be lined up behind any of the dem candidates the way they do behind the mediocrity that is George W. Bush they would look just short of god-like.

It is going to take the people, despite everything that they are spoon-fed, to wake up and take their country back (providing they want it in the first place).

That being said, Trippi is running an excellent grass roots campaign, and I think we've yet to see the full extent of what Lehane can do.
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Wapsie B Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-17-04 04:47 PM
Response to Original message
4. KKKarl's stock and trade
is the fact that he realizes that in this day and age in the game of politics there are no rules. He merely uses that to his full advantage.
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Khephra Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-17-04 04:49 PM
Response to Reply #4
5. That I'll give you no argument on
But there's a difference between that and being this omnipotent political machine that's behind everyone and everything bad for us.
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Feanorcurufinwe Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-17-04 04:52 PM
Response to Original message
6. And it gives him WAY too much credit to use the 'term'
'Rovian'. The last thing we need is this guy's name entering the English language permanently!

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mikehiggins Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-17-04 04:55 PM
Response to Reply #6
9. Yeah. Lets use "loser" instead. eom
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placton Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-18-04 03:46 PM
Response to Reply #6
47. I disagree let's use the term ROVIAN a lot
since the media and the VRWC continue to use "Clintonesqe" and its offspring.
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rumguy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-17-04 04:56 PM
Response to Original message
10. hear, hear - Rove is vastly over-rated
He's really nothing but a fat, balding, wimpy-looking, corporate whore...
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maddezmom Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-17-04 04:58 PM
Response to Original message
12. "Evil Pillsbury Dough-Boy"
but he'll do anything to win, including committing crime if you ask me.
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MJP Donating Member (87 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-17-04 05:13 PM
Response to Reply #12
17. Never underestimate your opponent
First, I wouldn't really Gore's campaign was inept. He did get the most votes.

Secondly, you mentioned the reason to fear Karl Rove in your post, it's his sleaziness, precisely. He doesn't play by the rules. He doesn't play by any rules. How do you win against that?

Now, I don't necessarily believe he'll eat up Clark and spit him out. I'm just saying don't ever underestimate him. Look at the bumbling idiot that he got into the White House. And, he didn't even need the most votes to do it.

He understands how dumb America really is. I guarantee most people, not people who post here, but average America, your neighbors, relatives, coworkers, they don't even know who Karl Rove is. And, that's just the way he wants it. He understands all you have to do is plant one little seed of disinformation into the media about an opponent and that will grow in the feeble minds of Americans everywhere until soon the persons whole campaign is reeling and trying to pick up the pieces.

What did he say? "Come on everybody, go Howard Dean!" Now look what's happening. (okay, okay, you're going to say I'm giving him too much credit with that one. But, who's to know what kind of effect that one little statement had on us all. I didn't even know about it til someone I know, who I feel is very intelligent and respect, came up to me and said, "Dean is a 'plant'." )

Anyway, back to my point, sure he's beatable, but we should never, ever underestimate him.
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maddezmom Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-17-04 10:08 PM
Response to Reply #17
33. thanks for the tips, but he is still just an " EPDB"
Edited on Sat Jan-17-04 10:09 PM by maddezmom
I don't under estimate him, just not afraid of him. He needs to get out in the sun more.

BTW: who are you supporting in the dem. primary?
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MJP Donating Member (87 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-18-04 12:00 PM
Response to Reply #33
39. Right now
Right now, Clark.

I'm really kind of undecided though. I kind of like Kerry. I don't know much about Edwards, though he's starting to pique my interest.

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dodger501 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-17-04 05:01 PM
Response to Original message
13. Ask John McCain
Rove learned at the feet of Lee Atwater, the master of dirty tricks, and has outdone him.
What Rove and these guys are good at, is starting "whispering campaigns" such as the one in SC about McCain and his black daughter, his wife's drug addiction, etc.
And as far as Gore goes, the media did not just one day wake up and decide to rip him for everything that came out of his mouth. That was no accident.

The actual dirty work is done by others but Rove's is the guiding hands.

He may be a worm and a punk, but he is a dangerous one. I would not underestimate his capacity for pure, unadulterated evil.
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mikehiggins Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-17-04 05:27 PM
Response to Reply #13
21. True enough but look at Dean
Who would have thought he would be in the position he's in.

He did it because he learned from others mistakes and he found something that no one else was paying proper attention to.

Well, Karl Rove did the same thing, as you say, when he paid close attention to what Lee Atwater did. But he did it, and he did it, and he did it and now what is left?

We KNOW what he is capable of, sleaze and all, and knowing is a little like inoculation. We have to go AT him at all times, in every way possible. We have to shake HIS little cage, and not let him roost comfortably in the shadows.

Clark called him out by name. Everyone has to do so, as often as it takes. Do you really think he'll be able to stand the pressure? Do you really think Bush will protect him when he becomes a liability?

Do you think his bully act will last long when no one is intimidated?

You know what I'd like to see? I'd like to see some show, some public access cable show, have a film crew follow him around like the celebrity he is. That's where someone like Mike Moore could prove invaluable. It could be a whole new movie, something like "Karl and Me" similar to "Roger and Me".

Out him, as some of my friends phrase it.

If the paparazzi could hound Princess Di, why should someone as powerful and secretive as that be immune?

But I digress.

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Leilani Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-18-04 03:23 AM
Response to Reply #13
37. Agree Completely
What he did to McCain was the ugliest politics ever.

But what makes him so brilliant is:

He got Shrub elected Governor of Texas

& then


He got him selected President of USA

I am still in amazement that this guy won 2 elections, stole another & is hanging in there for reelection.
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ithinkmyliverhurts Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-17-04 05:03 PM
Response to Original message
14. I think Rove has proven on thing, however:
That you can, in fact, polish a turd.
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Cuban_Liberal Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-17-04 05:06 PM
Response to Reply #14
15. LOL!
:P
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babzilla Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-18-04 11:30 PM
Response to Reply #14
50. turdblossom is Rove's bush given nickname

bush has a cute nickname for everyone and Rove's is Turdblossom. Dubbed so because he can make a flower blossom from a cow patty.

I am not making this up.
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Dr Fate Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-17-04 05:12 PM
Response to Original message
16. I agree, it's not Rove, it's the media itself...
Edited on Sat Jan-17-04 05:14 PM by Dr Fate
If the Repubs. did not have the media stacked against us, Rove would really not be that effective.

Perhaps Rove's "genius" does lay in whatever hold he has on the media...

His actual propaganda tactics would not stand up to the old-time media during the 60's, 70's and part of the 80's- but it works well when you already have the game rigged.

Where is the O'Neil story anyway? Karl's "Genius" is making sure no one even talks about it, therefore he has less "work" to do...
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IronLionZion Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-17-04 05:13 PM
Response to Original message
18. his only tactics are sowing fear and nationalism
If you fear him, then he is winning already. What's there to fear? He a fat chump who is going down with the ship in November. Don't fear him and we can win this thing.

Like I said so many times before. Bush does not have this election in the bag, they just want us to think that so we get dispirited and don't go all out. We can win this thing if we put our collective effort into it. This HAS to be a massive grass roots campaign with small donations even if Dean doesn't get the nomination.

You have the power! Collectively we are way more powerful than the Rove machine.
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LibertyorDeath Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-17-04 05:13 PM
Response to Original message
19. Rove who seems almost a poster boy for anal-retentive wonks everywhere

Thanks that was great!
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farmbo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-17-04 05:17 PM
Response to Original message
20. Rove doesn't scare me...$200 mil and a stranglehold on the media...
...that scares me.
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mikehiggins Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-17-04 05:29 PM
Response to Reply #20
23. 200 million dollars couldn't make the Edsel succeed either eom
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AlinPA Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-17-04 05:32 PM
Response to Reply #20
24. The media control is what worries me too.
Q: Can Fox TV outlets refuse to accept Dem. TV ads? Murdoch could put a dent in our campaigns in the fall if they do. Likewise with Clear Channel and many newspapers.
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mikehiggins Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-17-04 09:52 PM
Response to Reply #24
28. We aren't going to EVER get a fair and balanced shot on FAUX
FAUX (The WWE of Journalism) NEWS is the tool of a very rich man who knows which side of the bread his butter is on. If we win this one the very first thing that has to happen is Clark has to put someone like Elliot Spitzer in charge of the FCC and tell him to break up all these media conglomerates forthwith.

Clark should also instruct the new Attorney General (John Edwards, perhaps) to begin constructing a brief undoing the faulty Supreme Court decision that allowed corporations to be treated as actual human beings in legal matters.

Damn. I'm beginning to sound like a radical instead of a middle of the road retired construction worker. Must be the Florida water.
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AlinPA Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-17-04 05:29 PM
Response to Original message
22. I'm not afraid of him - I just believe he is responsible
for signing off on all the policies and decisions at the White House. That includes going to war in Iraq to make Bush look like a wartime CINC and incidentally to improve Halliburton's bottom line.
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TNMOM Donating Member (735 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-17-04 05:46 PM
Response to Original message
25. Overconfidence will destroy the Repugs
I kinda like the fact that the media makes Karl Rove look invincible, and I hope the Repugs believe their guy is a genius. The more they coast on this myth, the easier it will be to beat the crap out of them in November. :P
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Upfront Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-17-04 06:13 PM
Response to Original message
26. Research A Little.
Edited on Sat Jan-17-04 06:18 PM by Upfront
Start with the book " Bush's Brain" written by James Moore and Wayne Slater. Rove is about the slickest political operative that ever lived. He is rotten, will do anything to win, and he should be respected but not feared. If he were a Democrat we might even like him. Never underestimate this guy. He is the best at what he is. Read the book and you will understand.
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mikehiggins Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-17-04 09:54 PM
Response to Reply #26
29. You know, Lee Atwater died of a brain tumor, as I recall
Could that sort of thing be contaigious?

That might explain so much.
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snippy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-17-04 06:32 PM
Response to Original message
27. There is nothing, including criminal activity, Turd Blossom Rove will not
do to win. Combine his complete amorality with his ruthlessness and he is frightening. Spreading the rumor during the 2000 South Carolina republican primary that John McCain had a "nigger daughter" illustrates this. Throw in his considerable political strategist skills together with his unlimited budget and nonstop polling on not only issues, but also on words and gestures and he is a dangerous foe. His veto power over everything Bush says and does, including on foreign policy and national security issues, and Bush's surprisingly good approval ratings illustrate this.
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wyldwolf Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-17-04 09:54 PM
Response to Original message
30. Who do I thing Karl Rove is?
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mikehiggins Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-19-04 07:01 PM
Response to Reply #30
58. I think of him more as Grima Wormtongue in the Lord of the Rings.
I hope they make a movie of the one-term presidency of the Invisible Airman so Brad Dorff can play Rove.

When you stop to think about it, a lot of movie and tv stars could play administration characters, and others, in a movie like that.

William Macy could play Joe2004.

Chevy Chase could play Dubya.

Jack Nicholson could play Rumsfield.

Dave Chappelle could play Condi Rice.

Jim Carrey could play Anne Coulter.

The list goes on.
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onecitizen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-17-04 10:01 PM
Response to Original message
31. The Devil!!!
:evilgrin:
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maxanne Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-17-04 10:04 PM
Response to Original message
32. if you are really
as uninformed about Rove as you seem, I suggest reading the book about him called, "Bush's Brain." It details many of the Machivellian dealings in Rove's life - beginning with his first rigged election in high school. Learn how he managed to railroad Jim Hightower, and Ann Richards out of office. He always manages to walk away clean. Amazing. It's a book worth reading.

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mikehiggins Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-18-04 02:33 AM
Response to Reply #32
35. I may be uninformed about this particular example of the species
but I am very aware of how people manipulate others to gain their ends. I just don't think this sad little man with his lonely, geekish existence, is particularly good at what he does.

Recently, reference was made to a paper Henry Kissinger wrote in which he claimed the Germans fell to the Nazis because the powers-that-be didn't understand that the Nazis represented something new that they had never seen before. By the time the establishment got the message it was far, far too late.

Rove, like Atwater before him, benefitted from the same sort of misunderstanding on the part of his opponents.

Some years back I worked on a campaign for a man running for office in Brooklyn. Someone thought we should come up with a campaign slogan so I got a local artist to make a beautiful sign that included my suggested slogan. The slogan was "whatever it takes." Needless to say, many of our supporters were horrified by the sentiment and that led my candidate to deepsix the slogan, and the thinking behind it. Needless to say, to me at least, we lost that election.

Rove is not the first advocate of this kind of political action. Saul Alinsky, a man who helped train Cesar Chavez and lots of other radical activists maintained the same point of view, and he came out of the leftie labor movement. His books, Rules for Radicals and Reveille for Radicals should be required reading, just as the Art of War is for soldiers.

Rove only thrives because the Democratic party has abandoned its radical roots and become the establishment, unable to react to things that the old style lefties would consider matter of fact, run of the mill, dime a dozen political infighting.

Trippi, Lehane, all those guys think of themselves, IMHO, as high level technocrats, above the fray and moving pieces here and there around the chess board of the political life. Rove, like Alinsky and others, wallows in the mud. A dirty fighter is usually a winning fighter, and in this contest the man with reservations is the man who comes up losing.

I applauded Clark's backhand mention of Dubya's drinking problems. Was it a nice thing to do? The right thing to say? Of course not. Is it the kind of thing we have to do if we want to win? Certainly.

One of the things I like about Clark is one of the things that horrifies so many of the pure ideology folks on this board.

From what I can see, my "whatever it takes" banner could hang behind his desk, and it wouldn't bother him at all.

So who is Karl Rove? This year he's just another loser.
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maxanne Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-19-04 07:08 PM
Response to Reply #35
59. oh, sorry
I didn't realize you were asking a rhetorical question.
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Samantha Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-17-04 10:11 PM
Response to Original message
34. Karl Rove is the dirtiest man in politics today, that's who he is
Fear does not come into play here; knowing exactly what you are dealing with and gearing up to deal with it does.
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Eloriel Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-18-04 02:41 AM
Response to Original message
36. Uh, have people killed?
Or work for people who have people killed -- same difference IMO.
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izzie Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-18-04 09:27 AM
Response to Original message
38. Lee Atwater in a much bigger suit?
n/t
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NewHampster Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-18-04 12:26 PM
Response to Original message
40. The Greatest PR Mind of Our Times
A lying sack of crap that would have gladly helped Hitler for the right contract fee.
But Karl Rove is so good that most people, like this thread starter, don't believe someone could be back there actually pulling these kind of strings. If as a good dem you believe blindly in the fundamental goodness of the American people then you will be eaten alive by Karl Rove.

He works for people who believe above all else that the end does justify the means.

Do you think Deans wife coming to the forefront of discussion is an accident? Does anyone care about the issue of her professional values vs the good obeying wifely values of the repukes? NO, but the left over anti-semitic voters in Iowa and NH will hear the Jewish name and that is all Karl Rove wants.

Do you really think Karl Rove would publicly announce that Dean is the candidate they'd like to face without there being some underlying reason to say that? NO. Dean is his worst nightmare and he's delighting in sitting back watching the press run with his un-elect-ability framing.

This is expertly planned PR that is analyzed word for word before being unleashed. He and his people are professionals at working on our collective sub-conscious and he is incredible at creating no-win situations for the opposition.

The most basic example started before Rove. if one isn't Right wing you must be wrong.

Yes its semantics. Yes its semantics!!!!

Semantics wins elections and it loses countries.
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mikehiggins Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-18-04 01:25 PM
Response to Reply #40
42. Nah
He does a lot of sneaky things but the bottom line is that Gore beat Bush by half a million votes and it took the Supreme Court to put the Invisible Airman into the Oval Office.

Rove pulled out all the stops in 2000 and still only survived because of events outside of his control.

What if Baghdad erupts in blood and rioting three weeks before the November election what good will all Rove's plans do?

What if the dollar tanks in July and inflation kicks off?

What if rumors start up that Bush is hitting bottle again?

What if Clark becomes the nominee and Bush has to debate him or back out in front of the entire nation?

All sorts of things can happen that are beyond any man's control and what happens then?

Rove is out of a job and ends up running city council campaigns in Dallas. Lost and forgotten in weeks.

He isn't superman; just a man



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MoonRiver Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-18-04 01:33 PM
Response to Original message
43. LOL! Some good points.
Edited on Sun Jan-18-04 01:35 PM by saywhat
Rove has always reminded me of the "great" Oz, hiding behind a flimsy curtain pulling levers that produce all sorts of sturm and thunder. But when the screen is opened Oz is revealed to be a weak little old man.

But in reality I think what scares me about Rove, and the other bushies, is how ruthless and sociopathic they are. I don't think Hemmler was very bright either, but he was as relentlessly vicious as they come. That's why we have to oust these monsters in '04.
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Blue_Roses Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-18-04 02:39 PM
Response to Original message
45. This may give you an idea
Edited on Sun Jan-18-04 02:42 PM by devrc243
of how Rove weaves his spider web

--------
Genius
He's the wizard of the West Wing, the most powerful political consultant ever, the maker of presidents, the destroyer of Democrats. But how did Karl Rove get that way? Take a little luck, a lot of skill, a few dirty tricks, and a quarter-century of hardball Texas politics, and it all adds up to genius.

by S. C. Gwynne


IN THE SUMMER OF 1989 A legislator named Terral Smith received a phone call at his Austin office from a young political operative named Karl Rove. The two men knew each other casually. Both were Republicans with rising political ambitions. Smith was a state representative. Rove was a political consultant who owned a small company that raised money by mail for candidates. He was calling to ask a favor. He had a friend from Midland he was trying to persuade to run for governor. He wanted Smith to give his client a little friendly coaching on the subject of criminal justice. Smith, who had been the chairman of the Criminal Jurisprudence Committee in the state House of Representatives, said sure.

He arrived at the small conference room at a downtown Austin hotel, where the meeting was to take place, and Rove introduced his pupil: George W. Bush. For the next hour, Rove listened intently as Bush, who chewed a cigar and propped his feet up on the table, asked questions and Smith held forth. Smith recalls that Bush seemed confident, almost cocky, as though he had already made up his mind on many of the issues. For Bush it was just one of many such meetings; Rove had lined up a full day of issue briefings in the same hotel room.

None of this might seem noteworthy, except for one thing: There was absolutely no reason to believe, in 1989, that George W. Bush could ever be elected mayor of Midland, let alone governor of Texas. He had little going for him beyond the fact that he shared three fourths of a name with the president of the United States. He was a 43-year-old who had never quite lived up to expectations: a mediocre student, a failed congressional candidate, an entrepreneur in the oil patch who had had access to a large pool of East Coast capital and still had not made it big. He was a hesitant, often ungrammatical public speaker. He had once enjoyed a reputation as a party boy. Though that year he helped organize an investor group to buy baseball's Texas Rangers, it would be several years before he achieved success as the team's managing partner.

more...


http://www.texasmonthly.com/mag/issues/2003-03-01/feature2.php?2048073354

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mikehiggins Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-18-04 03:40 PM
Response to Reply #45
46. A great article
That was a great article and well worth reading. It also appears I was wrong about one aspect of Rove's life and I'm a big enough man to admit it.

Apparently he is not the kind of geek who would be spending his time in his mother's basement playing video games if he didn't have people's lives to play with. He was married twice (and he didn't divorce his first wife in her cancer ward) and has a son.

So, he does have something approaching a life and I'm fairly certain he doesn't have to patronize hookers unlike another prominent talking head on the GOP side.

The rest of it stands, however.

Whatever it takes.

I wish him luck handling that thing about Bush hitting the bottle.
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Blue_Roses Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-18-04 11:11 PM
Response to Reply #46
48. I watched Rove spin his
way into the governor's race in Texas and he hasn't let up since. He thrives on dirty tricks and mud-slinging. He trashed Ann Richards--the incumbent governor--with loads of sleazy, trash ads. He talked about her alcoholism, but little did we know at the time that Bush had a dirty little secret of his own that he had been hiding for 25 years...his own DWI.

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mikehiggins Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-19-04 01:42 AM
Response to Reply #48
56. Cheers for the Internet
Not only can you find information about the DWI but you can also find references to the interview Bush gave where he told a newsman in Israel that Jesus had told him to invade Iraq.

Of course we can't prove he said that, but so what?

Look at what Drudge did with the mutilated mess he made of Clark's testimony. Have you seen this, by the way?

It seems Mr. Perle had no illusions about Clark's position on the war.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

SCHROCK: Sure, I would love to know Mr. Perle's, you know, the general said time is on our side. My guess is you do not believe that.

PERLE: No, I don't believe it and frankly I don't think he made a very convincing case in support of that cliche but it was one of many cliches. At the end of the day when you sought to elicit from him a reconciliation of the view that time is on our side with what he acknowledged to be our ignorance of how far along Saddam Hussein is, he had no explanation. He seems to be preoccupied, and I'm quoting now, with building legitimacy, with exhausting all diplomatic remedies as though we hadn't been through diplomacy for the last decade, and relegating the use of force to a last resort, to building the broadest possible coalition, in short a variety of very amorphous, ephemeral concerns alongside which there's a stark reality and that is that every day that goes by, Saddam Hussein is busy perfecting those weapons of mass destruction that he already has, improving their capabilities, improving the means with which to deliver them and readying himself for a future conflict.
So I don't believe that time is on our side and I don't believe that this fuzzy notion that the most important thing is building legitimacy, as if we lack legitimacy now, after all the U.N. resolutions that he's in blatant violation of, I don't believe that that should be the decisive consideration. So I think General Clark simply doesn't want to see us use military force and he has thrown out as many reasons as he can develop to that but the bottom line is he just doesn't want to take action. He wants to wait.

SCHROCK: Sure, in an ideal world it would be nice if we didn't have to use military action. I used the analogy when I was in the navy and the ship got under way at 0800. I'd rather be at the ship at 0600 than 0801. I think that makes a big difference and I'd rather be preemptive than reactive because 9/11/01 was reactive and we certainly don't want that again.
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gulliver Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-18-04 11:24 PM
Response to Original message
49. More loathsome than fearful. He is a pustule...
... on the face of humanity. An abscessed pimple. He is a cross between Rush Limbaugh and Dick Morris. Literally. The two mated in some unholy way and spawned a larval bag of squirming Karl Rove.
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Blue_Roses Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-18-04 11:40 PM
Response to Reply #49
51. LOL!
gross...lol!
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quaker bill Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-18-04 11:46 PM
Response to Original message
53. Rove plays dirty
But he is no more a threat to Wes Clark than he is to Howard Dean or for that matter any potential Dem. nominee.

He will attack any of them with equal ferocity. That is what they pay him for.
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Turkw Donating Member (521 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-18-04 11:55 PM
Response to Reply #53
55. We have to dig that maggot out from under the hole he's hiding in and
expose him to the country.
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mikehiggins Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-19-04 03:35 PM
Response to Reply #55
57. Maybe Mike Moore could be influenced to do a short film about
Rove and his role in the rise of the Invisible Airman? Wouldn't have to be a major bit, just a short one like the ones he did for his tv show.

Maybe have film crews follow Rove around in hopes of getting footage of him tripping a blind man, or stealing (ahem, reassessing the ownership parameters of) candy from babies.

Folks like that don't do well in the public eye.
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babzilla Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-18-04 11:49 PM
Response to Original message
54. I just think of him as pasty doughboy
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Clark4VotingRights Donating Member (795 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-19-04 07:10 PM
Response to Original message
60. It's kinda like they said in Blazing Saddle's about Mongo...
Rove's not so much a 'who' as a 'what.'

:evilgrin:
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mandyky Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-19-04 07:11 PM
Response to Original message
61. Rove worked on Nixon's
dirty tricks squad in WI. He is also shrub's Brain - there is a book titled Bush's Brain I think. Ask Ann Richards about Karl Rove.
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