FLASHBACK: In 2000, Rove Called For Gore To Come Clean Over Ethical Issues
FLASHBACK: In 2000, Rove Called For Gore To Come Clean Over Ethical Issues
During the 2000 presidential campaign, Karl Rove, then-Bush campaign strategist, appeared on Fox News to try to undermine Vice President Al Gore’s credibility and truthfulness by questioning his involvement in a 1996 campaign fundraiser at a Buddhist temple. Here’s what Rove said:
The vice president has some trouble telling the truth. And he now says he made mistakes. Those weren’t mistakes. These involved violations of the law. People are going to jail over this… This is more than just a little teensy-weensy mistake… These are very substantive questions about the ethical conduct about the vice president and his ability to tell the truth. [Fox News Sunday, 3/12/00]
Does this remind you of a present-day scandal? So what was Rove calling for at the time? Full disclosure.
We now know there are photographs that exist of the meeting. Let’s release all the photographs. The vice president has the authority to do this. Let’s release all the photographs of the meeting and see how attentive the vice president was. [Fox News Sunday, 3/12/00]
Applying Rove’s standards to Plamegate, he should release his emails regarding the leak scandal from July 2003 to clear his name. Or, as the New York Times suggests in an editorial this morning, “Mr. Rove could clear all this up quickly. All he has to do is call a press conference and tell everyone what conversations he had and with whom.”
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There is one major difference here.
Rove (to the best of my knowledge) has not ever admitting to making any mistakes. Nor has anyone in the Bush administration, for that mattter. Bush himself stated that “it’s incumbent upon us to learn from lessons or mistakes“, but what lessons can be learned when there are no mistakes?
The upside to all this is that the fall from the lofty pedestal they have placed themselves on will be so much more painful and ruinous.
July 13th, 2005 at 8:51 amJohn,
I don’t get what you’re saying here–if Rove or the Administration hasn’t admitted any mistake then there isn’t one?
July 13th, 2005 at 9:45 amHah! Rove lecturing about ethics and lies is too ironic. Ethics are to Rove like a crucifix is to Dracula, and the same goes for the rest of the Bush regime.
July 13th, 2005 at 9:47 amI’m not so sure about the New Your Times suggestion that
Rove could clear all this up quickly with a press conf.
That seems like kind of a stupid statement to me.
I’ve repeatedly heard that this is ‘an ongoing criminal investigation’. I doubt if it’s the right time for Karl
to call a press conf. and spill his guts.
And for something off topic. Last night on the radio was
the first time I’ve heard of a response from the W.H.
The radio news said “The White House has stated that it
is standing firmly beside Karl Rove”.
We have got to go to the W.H. ourselves and throw these
July 13th, 2005 at 9:51 ameffing War Pigs out on their ears. There seems to be no
other alternative.
On the subject of Rove flashbacks… Bush has already fired Rove for leaking to Novak… 13 years ago!
Papa Bush that is, from his re-election team. For trash-talking a rival Texas republican fundraiser to Novak in 1992. (Houston Chronicle, 11/9/03 – “Karl and Bob: A leaky history”)
Circumstantial evidence?
July 13th, 2005 at 10:04 amIf this were a Democratic administration, we’d have Congressional hearings already, and some special counsel spending $50 million investigating the matter.
At the same time, I don’t want to excuse anyone in power who abuses his position and betrays the public trust. I don’t care if someone is from “my side”….if he’s a crook, a liar, incompetent, or whatever he must go because he’s not good for me nor for the country. And, this is the big difference between “us” and “them” (on the conservative side! The latter don’t even admit to their mistakes even in the face of overwhelming evidence!
Plus, we tend to be much more independent that the sheepish conservatives. Not to mention that we’re better detectors of bullsh*t!
July 13th, 2005 at 10:26 amRecall President Bush’s words on August 3rd, 2000, upon accepting the Republican nomination:
“So when I put my hand on the Bible, I will swear to not only uphold the laws of our land, I will swear to uphold the honor and dignity of the office to which I have been elected, so help me God.”
July 13th, 2005 at 10:34 amThe irony here is that Karl Rove’s own defense will ultimately be something very similar to “No Controlling Legal Authority.”
July 13th, 2005 at 10:35 amJohn S.
These weren’t “mistakes.” They were felonies, and felonies for which we now have hard evidence.
They were also felonies where the President promised that he wanted to know about any leak in his administration and that he would fire anyone who leakd the information.
Oops..backfire. So but your money where your mouth is George.
July 13th, 2005 at 10:46 amFor the many of us who think Rove should be canned, Act for Change has a petition to Bush demanding just that:
http://www.workingforchange.com/activism/action.cfm?itemid=19325
I think that leaking Plame’s name was the usual “me first” politics that we get from all politicians, and this administration in spades. But a depressingly large portion of the press and the public don’t understand the significance of outing Plame.
For Plame herself, the consequences are merely loss of the ability to operate under cover, and the need to deal with friends and neighbors who she deceived for years. This seems to be what people concentrate on. But this is a woman who spent years overseas, building and operating a circle of operatives and informants on behalf of the US. While doing that, she had a cover job, but a public one. Now that her status as a CIA agent is widely known, it takes very little effort for foreign governments or other groups to review her past activities and come up with a list of people still overseas who were very likely her contacts and operatives. It is THOSE people whose lives have probably been endangered. It is the projects that they are working on that have probably been compromised.
This is a serious security breach, not some little “inside the beltway” story about political revenge.
July 13th, 2005 at 11:52 amIf Rove or the Administration hasn’t admitted any mistake then there isn’t one?
Yes, much in the same way the Catholic Church didn’t admit Galileo was right until the 1960s, and therefore until that point the Earth was in fact the center of the universe.
I am kidding of course.
These weren’t “mistakes.� They were felonies, and felonies for which we now have hard evidence.
I am not going to be so quick to cast that net, Selwynn, at least not until Fitzgerald releases some findings. But your second point is certainly true, and the only real issue we can prove right now.
Bush promised to get rid of any leakers, and Rove is beyond a shadow of a doubt such a person. Time for Bush to make good on his “promise”, but I won’t hold my breath.
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