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Kurtz: ‘Fox Should Mention’ That Karl Rove Is ‘A Maxed-Out Donor To McCain’

rovefoxnewsweb.jpgOn Sunday, Fox News Sunday hosted former Bush adviser Karl Rove — who has been a Fox News contributor since Feb. 5 — to offer supposedly independent analysis of the presidential race. As Think Progress noted, Fox refused to mention or acknowledge that Rove has been described as an informal adviser to the McCain campaign and is said to have provided electoral maps to the campaign.

In a Washington Post chat yesterday, a reader asked media reporter Howard Kurtz if Fox News should “label Karl Rove as an advisor to the McCain campaign when he appears on their network?” Kurtz responded that Rove “insists he is not even an informal adviser to McCain,” but that Fox should nonetheless disclose that Rove is “a maxed-out donor” to McCain’s campaign:

NEW YORK: You wrote negatively today about “the lack of disclosure by the networks of some of these government and business connections.” So does that criticism extend to Fox News for continuing to refuse to label Karl Rove as an advisor to the McCain campaign when he appears on their network?

HOWARD KURTZ: I’ve asked Rove about this, and he insists he is not even an informal adviser to McCain, does not get on strategy calls, etc. He is, however, a maxed-out donor to McCain, and Fox should mention that when he’s on. Same goes for other political analysts on all the networks who’ve given money to any of the candidates.

In February, Rove admitted “that he had contributed $2,300” to McCain’s campaign. Though Rove and McCain aides such as Mark McKinnon insist that “there’s no official/formal relationship” between the former Bush adviser and the campaign, others observing Rove believe that he is advising the campaign “through multiple points of contact“:

But one of the savviest Karlologists I know suspects that Rove is providing a steady stream of advice through multiple points of contact with the campaign and the national party.

Rove’s reluctance to admit a relationship with the McCain campaign may have less to do with his desire to be “an open-source consultant” than it does with the fact that he is “up to his eyeballs in” trying to “nurture new independent political groups” to help McCain and the GOP in November. It is illegal for such outside groups to coordinate with campaigns.

Rove will be part of Fox’s Pennsylvania coverage tonight. Will they heed Kurtz’s advice and at least label Rove as a supporter of McCain?



31 Responses to “Kurtz: ‘Fox Should Mention’ That Karl Rove Is ‘A Maxed-Out Donor To McCain’”

  1. shoeless says:

    Rove will be part of Fox’s Pennsylvania coverage tonight. Will they heed Kurtz’s advice and at least label Rove as a supporter of McCain?

    I’m just going to go way out on a limb here, and say, “No”.


  2. Wayne A. Schneider says:

    Rove will be part of Fox’s Pennsylvania coverage tonight. Will they heed Kurtz’s advice and at least label Rove as a supporter of McCain?

    No. Why would they? They won’t destroy their own credibility with the people who watch them and believe what they say, and the people who watch them and believe what they say won’t be watching any other sources that point this out (or believe them if they do.)


  3. Freedom Rebel says:

    Rove you should have invested your $2,300 dollars in Exxon stock. That would be investing wisely.

    Plus, I would never consider getting my elections results from Fox News tonight. With Karl Rove on I wouldn’t want to lose my dinner.


  4. nochickenhawk says:

    Please don’t pick on O’l Rove. He has a lot of legal bills to pay so he must put his money where it will do him the most good. Hopefully and if things turn out correctly in November 2008, Uber Fuher Rove will have a whole lot more legal bills to think about paying. Seig Heil!!!


  5. Bobwurst says:

    re Dr Hussein,

    The reich-wing is too busy ignoring the 1000 suicide attempts the VA is covering up to ignore the reich-wing media bias at Fox, and the WaPo, and NYT, and CNN, and MSNBC (Olbermann excluded) and Time, and Newsweek, andonandonandon.


  6. RUCerious says:

    I wonder how Rove would look with a little tar and a lot of feathers on camera?


  7. Exit Stage Left says:

    Pig face rove must wear one of those funny nose/glasses thingies when he goes out in public. Otherwise I’m thinking it would be a very dangerous thing for him to do.


  8. Wayne A. Schneider says:

    nochickenhawk Says:

    Please don’t pick on O’l Rove. He has a lot of legal bills to pay…

    Why, has he done something illegal?

    You know, if you’re accused of a crime and you can present the proof of your innocence, it shouldn’t take a lot of money to defend yourself. Just present the proof of your innocence in court. Of course, if you’re guilty as hell, that will cost a lot of money to defend, and if justice truly is blind, you will be found guilty.


  9. McWars says:

    Karl Rove is a maxed-out diner of McDonald’s.


  10. shoeless says:

    …Fox’s Pennsylvania coverage tonight.

    Is Britney Spears running for office in Pennsylvania?

    Or did some blond go missing in Pennsylvainia?


  11. Oval12345678 aka James K. Sayre says:

    Mr. Karl Rove? Did he have any involvement in the electronic flipping of some seven Kerry votes into Bush votes on Election Night, back in November 2004?

    Well the vote-counting in today’s Pennsylvania Democratic Primary Election is almost completely done on electronic computerized voting machines run by Republican-controlled private corporations… How many thousands of votes will these Republican operatives flip from Obama to Hillary? Worked fine in New Hampshire with Diebold optical-scanners…

    However, if you trust Republican corporations to honestly count the votes, you have more faith than I do… Visit bradblog for more details…


  12. bs says:

    i see a zionist….treasonous….that should be tortured.


  13. Oval12345678 aka James K. Sayre says:

    Make that seven Million votes flipped electronically


  14. rastaman says:

    rove has got siegleman and dan abrams problems.

    he will be so inundated with subpoenas that he won’t be able to move in another 4 months.


  15. IgnoranceIsNotBliss says:

    So much ignoring to do and so little time to do it in.


  16. EvilPoet says:

    So tell me Mr. Rove, will your son be enlisting? If not, why not?


  17. A Patriot Acting says:

    “…others observing Rove believe that he is advising the campaign “through multiple points of contact“”

    This is how the blossoming turd operates. He get’s illegaly involved, but does it via outside multiple contacts. It’s alot tougher to prove and prosecute. Cheney plays by the same immoral rulebook. He avoids e-mails and hand written notes. These sh1theads actually think that as long as they haven’t left a trail of evidence that they haven’t done anything wrong. Breaking laws is second nature, just don’t be stupid enough to let it get back to you. Carefully read Rove’s letter to Dan Abrams. Nowhere does he deny being involved, even periferally. He simply parses his words carefully to give the impression of denying involvement. I don’t know if they make rope strong enough to hold this bast@rd but it’s a fate he and many in this Administration so deserve! Anyone curious should Google “Fred Malek”. he was a Nixon adviser, common associate of Rove, Cheney, Rumsfeld and several other traitors who are or were part of the current Administration. Malek was a huge advocate of Presidential power, and literally wrote the playbook on how to avoid accountability in criminal activities.


  18. 5th Estate says:

    Search ‘Karl Rove’ on FOX’s website and the ads at the end of the links list are:

    “Yellow Teeth Are Ugly” and “Ethanol Stocks News”.

    Somehow this makes sense to me.


  19. L. Hussein Annie says:

    Jebus. Republicans are such disgusting hypocrites. Blech.


  20. RUCerious says:

    Fox should also mention that Rove is a scumbag traitor, in a repeating chyron that shows up whenever his porcine image is shown.


  21. AngryOne says:

    While McCain spokesman Mark Salter called the Washington Post piece about his candidate’s temper “99% fiction,” one national Republican leader has already taken great pains to back up its account. Mitt Romney, the man who would be John McCain’s running mate, in January decried “the McCain way” of uncontrolled fury towards friends and foes alike.

    For the details, see:
    “VP Hopeful Mitt Romney Attacked McCain’s Temper.”


  22. RUCerious says:

    You mean this Mark Salter?
    from huffpo>>

    … a longtime aide and chief of staff to Senator John McCain, posted a response to Jean Rohe’s blog entry on the Huffington Post, writing that her speech at the New School university’s graduation ceremony last Friday “succeeded in making [herself] look like an idiot.” Salter writes, of Rohe and her graduating class, that it’s “unlikely any of you will ever posses the [sic] one small fraction of the character of John McCain.”

    More here


  23. shoeless says:

    Guido the Loving OBGYN Says:

    Or even better, perhaps the police at FOX studios could just go ahead and arrest him.

    No, they are still busy with their manhunt for Al Franken.


  24. Shayne says:

    Prytania Says: blahblahblah.

    Just as Rove has a right to do what he’s doing, per your whiny comment, we have a right to discuss it. You don’t like it, feel free to leave at any time.


  25. NOLIESPLEASE says:

    Since he can’t donate anymore, I hear Rove is cleaning McCains pipe every night. McCain doesn’t smoke….oh it’s the other pipe….now it makes sense as to why he keeps mixing up the Sunni’s and Sheites.


  26. regular_joe says:

    [Rove] is, however, a maxed-out donor to McCain…

    Of course he is. That’s because McSame is the ONLY presidential candidate who probably won’t go after Rove for a long list of felonies.

    Rove doesn’t want to spend the rest of his life behind bars. No wonder he’s advising the McSame campaign for free.


  27. Cal Malenky says:

    And the quest for the 30-year Rove-Reich of GOP dominance continues, in spite of all evidence that the party is headed for the wilderness.
    Rove’s all about winning. He’s addicted to it. He got out of the White House because there’s nothing left to win there.


  28. jgrant@goldfeinlaw.com says:

    This man (Rove )rolls around on the ground flailing at his smoky clothes and always says there NO FIRE.
    Come on people how many skimisihes will this man’s name be connected to and he’d wish we ‘d believe he had nothing to do with anything .
    Bush’s daddy fired him for a similar resaon , he ’s a slimy guy.


  29. Wayne A. Schneider says:

    Prytania Says:

    The main stream media has yet to prove that Rove is an informal adviser, and yet the left demand he come forward and admit something he is not. Everyone knows that he is a republican, and yet you want him to explain it every time he is on the air. He is a paid consultant on Fox. That we know. He donated the maximum contibution he could to Mc Cain. If I remember correctly, again, he is a republican. So he does have an interest in seeing Mc Cain elected. Begalla is paid consultant also. He was a paid consultant for Bill and now Hillary. Should he be asked to explain every night that he too gave the maximum donation to Hillary?

    When Rove receives a check for services from Mc Cain, then you might have something to whine about.

    April 22nd, 2008 at 3:51 pm

    John McCain is getting much more than President Bush’s endorsement and fundraising help for his campaign. He’s getting Bush’s staff.

    It’s no secret that Steve Schmidt, Bush’s attack dog in the 2004 election, and Mark McKinnon, the president’s media strategist, are performing similar functions for McCain now.

    But other big-name Bushies are lining up to boost McCain, too.

    Ken Mehlman, who ran Bush’s 2004 campaign, is now serving as an unpaid, outside adviser to the Arizona Republican. Karl Rove, the president’s top political hand since his Texas days, recently gave money to McCain and soon after had a private conversation with the senator. A top McCain adviser said both Mehlman and Rove are now informally advising the campaign. Rove refused to detail his conversation with McCain.

    See rest of article here

    If Republicans weren’t such cowards, perhaps this McCain asdviser would have the courage to identify himself. But he doesn’t, because the Republicans do not want the American people to ever learn the truth. Rove is an unpaid, informal adviser to the McCain campaign (according to the McCain campaign), so Fox news should identify him as such.

    Also, I like how you qualify your opinion that it has to be the MSM that “proves” it. Well, it’s hard to “prove” anything when it comes to the Republicans because their gut reaction is to lie about everything and anything. And Karl Rove is one of the biggest liars they’ve seen in years. The man simply will not tell the truth when a lie will do.

    So there, Prytania, here’s the reason we say Rove should be identfied as an informal McCain advioser. Because he is. Because someone from the McCain campaign said he was. Satisfied?


  30. trossi says:

    So now we should label all of news contributers with how much they donate to political campaigns? There was a news story about this way back and I pulled an excerpt from it:

    MSNBC.com identified 143 journalists who made political contributions from 2004 through the start of the 2008 campaign, according to the public records of the Federal Election Commission. Most of the newsroom checkbooks leaned to the left: 125 journalists gave to Democrats and liberal causes. Only 16 gave to Republicans. Two gave to both parties.

    The whole article can be found at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19113485/

    I think we already knew who Karl Rove would have given to considering the Republican nominee has been chosen. Do we know when he gave his contribution? If you watch Fox News and see Karl Rove (and you have a firing neuron in your brain), you know he is going to favor the republican in the race. What’s the news?

    I’m all for disclosing how much each contributer for each news station has given, I just think you’ll be disappointed with the results. Then again, you may feel that only contributions to the Rethuglican party are valid news items.


  31. batteries says:

    Did he have any involvement in the electronic flipping of some seven Kerry votes into Bush votes on Election Night, back in November 2004?

    Well the vote-counting in today’s Pennsylvania Democratic Primary Election is almost completely done on electronic computerized voting machines run by Republican-controlled private corporations… How many thousands of votes will these Republican operatives flip from toshiba pa3420u battery,toshiba satellite l10 battery Obama to Hillary? Worked fine in New Hampshire with Diebold optical-scanners…

    However, if you trust Republican corporations to honestly count the votes, you have more faith than I do… Visit bradblog for more details…



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