I think the Dems would be well-advised to nip this in the bud. They need to point out what Rove is REALLY saying.Why Rove Keeps Calling Obama "Arrogant"posted by John Nichols on 03/25/2009 @ 4:26pm
Former White House political czar Karl Rove has a history of referring to Barack Obama as "arrogant..."
SNIP
...The man who managed George Bush into the White House -- with an assist from partisan Republicans on the Supreme Court -- said on Fox News last July: "I will say yes, I do think Barack Obama is arrogant."
ABC News reported that he has told a Republican gathering on Capitol hill that the Democrat was "coolly arrogant."
"Even if you never met him, you know this guy," Rove reportedly told the congressional Republicans. "He's the guy at the country club with the beautiful date, holding a martini and a cigarette that stands against the wall and makes snide comments about everyone."
In a September, 2008, interview with Associated Press, the veteran Bush aide dismissed Obama as an "arrogant dilettante."
Rove's cynical "assessment" of Obama, and the word he uses to describe the man who swept the Republicans out of power, has not changed since Obama assumed the presidency...
SNIP
...After the O'Reilly-Rove session Tuesday night, Democratic National Committee communications director Brad Woodhouse griped, "If Karl Rove wants to call someone arrogant, perhaps he and Dick Cheney should look in the mirror. It was, after all, the Administration he worked for and helped lead that left America entangled in two wars, tarnished our reputation abroad, squandered a budget surplus and drove the American economy into the deepest economic crises since the Great Depression by insisting on their arrogant, 'our way or the highway,' ideological approach to domestic and foreign policies. Arrogance was a staple of the Bush-Cheney-Rove approach to politics and policy - eschewing accountability, blaming others and failing to level with the American people."
True enough.
But Rove, who never says anything casually, will keep inserting the word "arrogant" into any discussion about Obama -- not because the president is, in fact, arrogant, but because it is a word that the master of media manipulation knows is loaded.
The definition of arrogant generally goes something like this: "Having or displaying a sense of overbearing self-worth or self-importance." The arrogant individual, dictionaries tell us, display "a feeling or assumption of one's superiority toward others..."
As Rove well understands, the suggestion that the president is presumptuously arrogant -- as the word "uppity" is defined -- is a disempowering reference. It suggests that Obama is out of place in the White House, that the president perceives himself as important when he is not, and that, most damagingly, Obama presumes he is superior to the great mass of Americans.What Rove is practicing is a sly variation on class politics.
Obama, who is trying to use the power of government to aid dislocated workers and families threatened with foreclosure, who is holding more press conferences and doing more interviews than Bush, who is answering questions emailed to the White House by citizens, is an "arrogant" elitist. He's the guy at the cocktail party making fun of the rest of us.
Bush, who used the power of government to remove restrictions of bankers and speculators and in so doing fostered a scorching recession, who avoided the tough questions, who distanced himself off from the media and citizens, is homey man of the people. He's the guy out fixing a fence on his ranchette, er, sorry, ranch.
Of course, it is a false construct.
But, as the man they called "Bush's brain" well understands, lies repeated frequently enough become potent political tools...
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/state_of_change/421230/why_rove_keeps_calling_obama_arrogant?rel=hp_picks
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
