Salon's Joe Conason: "Karl Rove is a Liar"

[flpoljunkie]

http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2005/06/24/karl_rove/index.html

Karl Rove is a liar

In attacking liberals' reaction to Sept. 11, Bush's senior advisor once again resorts to McCarthy-style tactics.

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By Joe Conason

June 24, 2005  |  Karl Rove is a liar and a scoundrel. He is not a patriot but a pure partisan, as his own record proved long before now.

The other night Rove lied about the liberal reaction to the Sept. 11 attacks and again exploited patriotism for narrow partisan advantage in a time of war. He seeks to divert public opinion from the failures of the Bush administration by suppressing dissent, stigmatizing "liberals" and returning to the same old tactics that the Republican far right has used ever since the McCarthy era.

His unhinged rhetoric is a sign of deep worry within the White House, of course, as polls continue to show deepening public alienation from the president and growing skepticism about the war in Iraq. Most Americans now understand that they have been deceived about the war from the beginning, and most doubt the Bush administration's strategy for extricating our troops. Moreover, Rove must cope with Republicans as well as Democrats who are openly dissenting from the administration line, not only regarding Iraq but on the Bolton nomination and Social Security privatization.

Evidently Rove believes that demonizing Democrats and liberals will distract the nation from the Bush administration's failures. That tactic has certainly served him well in the past, when he managed to divert attention from the failure to deal with the terrorist threat before 9/11, the failure to speak honestly about the alleged threat from Iraq and the failure to plan intelligently for the Iraq invasion and its aftermath. We have paid an enormous price for those failures, yet cynical Rove still thinks he can convince us that this is all the fault of "liberals."

As a New Yorker who stood on my street and watched the Twin Towers fall, I take strong personal exception to Rove's ugly slander against "liberals." According to him, liberals "saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers." That broad-brush smear is false, and Rove knows it.

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[flpoljunkie]

1. And the coup de grace...

So when vicious little Ken Mehlman, the RNC chairman, claims that Rove was referring only to Michael Moore, he's lying too. I expect no apologies from either of them or their bullying supporters. They should expect none when those they have insulted and betrayed tell them what they are.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2005/06/24/karl_ro...

[Jack Rabbit]

2. Excellent work

Rove isn't the only liar in the Bush regime. As he is lying about Bush's opposition, so did they all lie about the threat posed to the US by Saddam's Iraq.

[grasswire]

3. Joe went wobbly

He trusted Bush in the aftermath of 9-11. Very unfortunate. Shoulda known better, considering the 10 year hunting of the Clintons by the GOP.