Does Rove Think Reagan And Bush Were ‘Weak’ For Discussing The ‘Situation’ They Inherited?
Does Rove Think Reagan And Bush Were ‘Weak’ For Discussing The ‘Situation’ They Inherited?
In his State of the Union address last night, President Obama described the dire state of affairs he faced as he entered office a year ago. “One year ago, I took office amid two wars, an economy rocked by a severe recession, a financial system on the verge of collapse, and a government deeply in debt,” said Obama.
Conservatives, who often complain that Obama blames former President George W. Bush too much, did not appreciate Obama’s recitation of the facts. “The blaming of the past administration is pathetically unpresidential,” blogged National Review’s Kathryn Jean Lopez last night. On Fox News this morning, Brian Kilmeade asked former Bush adviser Karl Rove if it’s “good politics” to “bring up your predecessor and talk about your first year in office while looking back at his last year in office?” “No, I think it makes you look weak,” replied Rove. Watch it:
By Rove’s logic, conservative icon Ronald Reagan and his former boss George W. Bush were also “weak.” As Media Matters’ Matt Gertz noted last night, Reagan “devoted significant portions” of his 1982 State of the Union “to attacking President Carter’s administration for ‘the situation at this time last year’”:
To understand the State of the Union, we must look not only at where we are and where we’re going but where we’ve been. The situation at this time last year was truly ominous. [...]
First, we must understand what’s happening at the moment to the economy. Our current problems are not the product of the recovery program that’s only just now getting under way, as some would have you believe; they are the inheritance of decades of tax and tax, and spend and spend. [...]
The only alternative being offered to this economic program is a return to the policies that gave us a trillion-dollar debt, runaway inflation, runaway interest rates and unemployment.
Though it wasn’t technically a State of the Union address, when former President Bush first addressed a joint session of Congress in February 2001, he too cast aspersion on his predecessor’s legacy. “Last year, Government spending shot up 8 percent. That’s far more than our economy grew, far more than personal income grew, and far more than the rate of inflation,” said Bush. “We must take a different path.”
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Rove Backs Off His Criticism Of Counterterrorism Center, Perhaps Remembering Chief Is A Bush Holdover
Rove Backs Off His Criticism Of Counterterrorism Center, Perhaps Remembering Chief Is A Bush Holdover
In recent days, attention has been turning toward Michael Leiter, director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), in the failed Christmas Day bombing. Politico’s Laura Rozen wrote that it appears that “knives [are] out” for Leiter. On Tuesday, former Bush White House adviser Karl Rove also jumped on the NCTC during an appearance on Fox News, saying that the agency was “where the problem probably occurred”:
VAN SUSTEREN: But somebody had the job, Karl, to coordinate all this information into one center place. I cannot believe that after 9/11, we didn’t figure out that we have to have some sort of central resource –
ROVE: Well, we did. We did. [...]
VAN SUSTEREN: Well, who’s in charge of that?
ROVE: The counterterrorism center is where the problem probably occurred because, look, there are lots of — we know that the State Department passed on the information. We know the CIA received it. We know the counterterrorism center received it.
It was surprising that Rove pointed the finger at the NCTC, since Leiter served with him in the Bush administration. Leiter became NCTC director in 2007, and then was retained by the Obama administration. But maybe Rove forgot these details and remembered them only after his Fox News appearance, because today during another Fox interview, he tried to shift blame away from the NCTC:
ROVE: In fact, the biggest problem is not within the NCTC and the intelligence community — Look, I want to say one word of defense for them. There’s a lot of information flowing through there. It seems to me this should have been caught, but there is a lot of information flowing through there, and the expectation that human beings are going to be perfect 100 percent of the time or that the system of computers and algorithms of detection software is going to be perfect 100 percent of the time is just wrong.
In both interviews, Rove insisted that the real problem was with the Obama administration, who decided to “treat the Christmas Day bomber as a criminal defendant” (just like the Bush administration did with the shoe bomber). Watch the two clips:
Today, the White House defended Leiter against a New York Daily News article that Leiter “did not cut short his ski vacation after the underwear bomber nearly blew up an airliner on Christmas Day.” National Security Council Chief of Staff Denis McDonough disputed the Daily News’ story, saying that Leiter was “intimately involved in all aspects of the nation’s response to the attempted terrorist attack” and took “six days of annual leave” after the event.
Today in his speech on the attack, Obama made clear that he wasn’t interested in playing the blame game. “Ultimately, the buck stops with me. … When the system fails, it is my responsibility,” he said.
Transcript: More »
Official Army History: Bush Administration Neglected Afghan War, Diverted Resources to Iraq
Official Army History: Bush Administration Neglected Afghan War, Diverted Resources to Iraq
During President Obama’s December speech announcing a new strategy for the war in Afghanistan, he noted that the effort was finally getting the resources it needed. During the previous administration, Obama said, “commanders in Afghanistan repeatedly asked for support to deal with the reemergence of the Taliban, but these reinforcements did not arrive.” “In early 2003, the decision was made to wage a second war, in Iraq,” Obama said, and “for the next six years, the Iraq war drew the dominant share of our troops, our resources, our diplomacy, and our national attention.”
Former Bush administration officials fired back, claiming the Iraq war did not deprive resources from Afghanistan. Former White House adviser Karl Rove said “the United States had, at the time what the military felt was an appropriate level of resources.” Bush’s Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld called Obama’s comments a “bald misstatement, at least as it pertains to the period I served as Secretary of Defense.” Later, Rumsfeld spokesperson Keith Urbahn turned up the heat, accusing Obama distorting the facts.
Unfortunately for Rumsfeld, Rove and their neo-con allies, the Army’s official history of the first four years of the war completely contradicts their claims. The New York Times reported this week that according to the official history, as early as late 2003, the Army historians assert, “it should have become increasingly clear to officials at Centcom and [the Department of Defense] that the coalition presence in Afghanistan did not provide enough resources” for a proper counterinsurgency campaign. Paraphrasing the history, the Times notes that American forces were “hamstrung by inadequate resources” and thus “missed opportunities to stabilize Afghanistan during the early years of the war.”
“A Different Kind of War,” the title of the account, to be published this Spring, is written by a team of seven historians at the Army’s Combat Studies Institute at Fort Leavenworth and covers the period from October 2001 until September 2005. Rumsfeld was secretary of defense during this entire time. The Army writes such reports after major military engagements in order to train future commanders.
Contradicting Rove and Rumsfeld, the historians blame the Iraq war for the lack of resources in Afghanistan, as well as top Bush officials and the president himself:
The historians say resistance to providing more robust resources to Afghanistan had three sources in the White House and the Pentagon.
First, President George W. Bush and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld had criticized using the military for peacekeeping and reconstruction in the Balkans during the 1990s. As a result, “nation building” carried a derogatory connotation for many senior military officials, even though American forces were being asked to fill gaping voids in the Afghan government after the Taliban’s fall. [...]
Third, the invasion of Iraq was siphoning away resources. After the invasion started in March 2003, the history says, the United States clearly “had a very limited ability to increase its forces” in Afghanistan.
The historians also note that, as was the case in Iraq, Bush officials had neglected to properly plan for what to do after the government fell. “[T]here was no major planning initiated to create long-term political, social and economic stability in Afghanistan,” the historians write. “In fact, the message from senior D.O.D officials in Washington was for the U.S. military to avoid such efforts.”
Despite Rove and Rumsfeld’s attempts to salvage their legacies, it’s widely accepted that the Bush administration neglected the Afghan war. But as the Times notes, these new findings are “notable for carrying the imprimatur of the Army itself.”
Cheney Joins Hypocritical Attacks On Obama’s ‘Low Key Response’ To Failed Terrorist Attack
Cheney Joins Hypocritical Attacks On Obama’s ‘Low Key Response’ To Failed Terrorist Attack
For the past few days, Republicans such as Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-MI), Rep. Peter King (R-NY) and former Bush adviser Karl Rove have been aggressively criticizing the Obama administration’s response to the failed terrorist attack on Christmas Day. “I’m disappointed it’s taken the president 72 hours to even address this issue,” said King on Monday. As ThinkProgress and others have noted, such attacks are supremely hypocritical considering that no Republicans complained when it took President Bush six days to comment on the similarly failed shoe bomber attack. But according to Politico, King and Hoekstra won’t concede that they’re holding Obama to a double standard:
The Democrats’ counterattack is aimed largely at two Republican congressmen who have been particularly critical of Obama, Reps. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.) and Peter King (R-N.Y.). But neither GOP lawmaker will concede applying a double standard to Obama. [...]
Asked Tuesday about how Obama’s response differed from Bush’s, King said it was his “recollection” that senior Bush Administration officials such as Attorney General John Ashcroft did speak out about Reid’s case soon after he was arrested. However, POLITICO could not locate any public comment from Ashcroft before he held a press conference when Reid was indicted nearly a month later.
“My point was there was no word coming from anyone except a press handout,” King told POLITICO Tuesday. “It didn’t have to be the president. I’d have been fine if it were Eric Holder or for that matter [Homeland Security Secretary Janet] Napolitano….There should be a face for the administration. For the first 48 hours, nobody said a word.”
Though he pointed out Hoekstra and King’s hypocrisy, Politico’s Josh Gerstein claimed that “former Bush aides and advisers have sidestepped the issue or endorsed Obama’s approach.” But in a statement given to a different Politico reporter, former Vice President Dick Cheney harshly criticized Obama’s “low key response“:
As I’ve watched the events of the last few days it is clear once again that President Obama is trying to pretend we are not at war. He seems to think if he has a low key response to an attempt to blow up an airliner and kill hundreds of people, we won’t be at war. He seems to think if he gives terrorists the rights of Americans, lets them lawyer up and reads them their Miranda rights, we won’t be at war. He seems to think if we bring the mastermind of 9/11 to New York, give him a lawyer and trial in civilian court, we won’t be at war.
Cheney’s claim that the Obama administration’s response to the attempted airline bombing is “trying to pretend we are not at war” is especially hypocritical because one of the Bush administration’s first public comments on the 2001 attempted shoe bombing specifically called it a “law enforcement” issue. At a press conference five days after the incident, then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld brushed off questions about Richard Reid’s failed bombing by saying, “That’s a matter that’s in the hands of the law enforcement people and not the Department of Defense.” “And I don’t have anything I would want to add,” said Rumsfeld.
Rove Attacks Obama Response To Failed Terrorist Plot, Despite Bush’s Delayed Response In 2001
Rove Attacks Obama Response To Failed Terrorist Plot, Despite Bush’s Delayed Response In 2001
Yesterday on Hannity, former Bush White House adviser Karl Rove sharply criticized President Obama’s response to the failed terrorist attack on Christmas Day. In particular, Rove went after the fact that Obama issued his first public statement on the matter 72 hours after the event:
CARLSON: This President was not notified until three hours after this incident became known. Is that a long time? It seems like a long time.
ROVE: Look, they woke him up immediately to tell him he won the Nobel Prize but couldn’t bother to interrupt his vacation for three hours to tell him a terrorist tried to bring down a plane on Christmas Day. And the President waits 72 hours before we hear from him, and it’s over 72 hours from the time of the incident to the time that the President spoke today, and then the President said some things that are simply not true.
Watch it:
Rove made similar comments this morning again on Fox News, pointing out that it took Obama “72 hours after the event” to issue a statement from Hawaii, where the President is vacationing. This criticism rings hollow coming from Rove, a former top official in the Bush administration — which waited even longer to comment on a failed airline plot in 2001. As the Huffington Post’s Sam Stein notes:
On December 22, 2001, Richard Reid — known more infamously as the shoe bomber — failed in his attempt to blow up a Miami-bound jet using explosives hidden in his shoe. Coming less than four months after September 11, there already were deep concerns about a potential attack during the upcoming holiday break. Nevertheless, President Bush did not directly address the foiled plot for six days, according to an extensive review of newspaper records from that time period. And when he did, it was only in passing.
Two days after the incident on Dec. 24, the Boston Globe noted Bush’s silence: “White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said that President Bush continued to monitor the situation and receive updates at Camp David. Bush has not issued any statements about the incident.”
Conservatives have also been hammering the Obama administration for treating the Christmas Day plot as a law enforcement issue and for Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano’s remarks that the “system, once the incident occurred, the system worked.” However, then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld also brushed aside questions about the shoe bomber by saying the matter was “in the hands of the law enforcement people,” and then-Attorney General John Ashcroft made comments similar to those of Napolitano.
Since the Christmas Day events, Obama has been consulting with his top advisers and administration officials have been actively speaking with press, including appearing on the Sunday public affairs shows. Today, Obama again made public comments on the incident while in Hawaii, stating, “But what already is apparent is that there was a mix of human and systemic failures that contributed to this potential catastrophic breach of security. We need to learn from this episode and act quickly to fix the flaws in our system, because our security is at stake and lives are at stake.”
Despite His Promise To ‘Applaud’ If Obama Deployed 30K More Troops, Rove Bashes Him For Being ‘Weak’
Despite His Promise To ‘Applaud’ If Obama Deployed 30K More Troops, Rove Bashes Him For Being ‘Weak’
Yesterday morning, former Bush adviser Karl Rove went on NBC’s Today Show and said that if President Obama decides to send 30,000-35,000 troops to Afghanistan, he would be “among the first to stand up and applaud.” Watch it:
Immediately after President Obama’s prime-time address last night — in which he announced that he would be deploying 30,000 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan — Rove went on Fox News’ The O’Reilly Factor and responded. However, he definitely didn’t “stand up and applaud.” Instead, he and O’Reilly bashed the President for underperforming (although he acknowledged that the “core” of Obama’s message was acceptable). Some highlights of their comments:
– O’REILLY: I did not see a Winston Churchill-type performance. … Summing up, the president’s speech tonight was OK but not exactly the Gettysburg Address.
– ROVE: I mean, I think he might need a new teleprompter with some Energizer bunny batteries in it. You know, look, at the core of tonight was good news, but it was badly delivered in a — you know, in a weak frame.
– ROVE: And the enemy knows that we’re going to send one quarter less troops than was requested by the military commander. And then for him to say, In 18 months I’m going to start withdrawing those people. That says to me — that sends a very — very bad signal to the enemy that you can wait us out.
– O’REILLY: But, look, the problem with Barack Obama, I think, is becoming increasingly clear. Not even — not just on Afghanistan but on a whole — a whole other bunch of issues. He’s an academic. … Where is the table pounding?
Watch it:
Transcript: More »
Rove Does His Best Cheney Impression As He Eagerly Dismisses ‘Draft Cheney’ Rumors
Rove Does His Best Cheney Impression As He Eagerly Dismisses ‘Draft Cheney’ Rumors
Ever since Liz Cheney floated her father as a possible presidential contender in 2012, rumors have swirled that the former VP may be thinking about such a run. Now, a group of right-wing activists is unveiling a new organization — “Draft Dick Cheney 2012.”
This morning on Fox News, former Bush political adviser Karl Rove summarily dismissed the “draft Cheney” rumors, and did so by mocking Cheney’s characteristically curmudgeon voice:
FOX: Karl, would Dick Cheney have any chance in running for the Oval Office in 2012? His favorability ratings were on the rise at last check, but still very low.
ROVE: Well, look, that’s a question we don’t even need to ask. Cheney’s been asked this question himself this past week, and I will quote Vice President Cheney when he was asked would you run for President in 2012. He said, [Rove doing Cheney impression] “Not a chance.”
I mean, look, he’s not running. He’s not running. [Rove doing Cheney impression] “Not a chance.”
Interestingly, in his eagerness to dismiss even the slightest hint that Cheney might run, Rove never offered a positive word during the segment about Cheney’s service as Vice President. “There are limits as to what Dick Cheney could be called upon to do for the country,” Rove said. Watch it:
Many right-wing activists had urged Cheney to make a run for president in 2008. In a piece titled “Cheney’s Chance,” The New York Sun wrote in 2007, “For those of us who are concerned with extending Mr. Bush’s campaign for freedom around the world and cutting taxes at home, a Cheney campaign is attractive.”
In this week’s Newsweek, Jon Meacham argues in favor of a Cheney presidential run, writing that it would offer the American public an opportunity to render a clear verdict on the Bush record.
“Because Cheney is a man of conviction, has a record on which he can be judged, and whatever the result, there could be no ambiguity about the will of the people,” Meacham writes, adding, “A campaign would also give us an occasion that history denied us in 2008: an opportunity to adjudicate the George W. Bush years in a direct way.”
Rove Attacks Obama For Bowing: He Should Do What All Presidents Have Done And ‘Not Bow To Monarchies’
Rove Attacks Obama For Bowing: He Should Do What All Presidents Have Done And ‘Not Bow To Monarchies’
This morning on Fox & Friends, former Bush adviser Karl Rove appeared on the program to bash President Obama for paying a respectful bow before the Japanese Emperor. Leading into the segment, co-host Steve Doocy claimed that there is a “long-standing precedent going back to the founding” of the U.S. that “American presidents don’t bow to anybody.” Doocy might want to do some research on President Eisenhower.
Calling the bow “inappropriate,” Rove wondered, “what’s that all about?” He added that Obama “simply can’t get it right” and that the bow is part of Obama’s “world-wide apology tour.” Rove concluded his assault with this final jab:
I think it’s best if American presidents do what they have always done — which is to stand for our small “r” republican values and do not bow to monarchies.
Watch it:
It’s true. Unlike Obama, Bush did not have a general policy of showing respect to world leaders. Instead, he opted for a special policy of showing particularly reverent displays of affection toward monarchs he liked. Presumably, Rove would have no complaints had Obama kissed and held hands with the Japanese Emperor:
Rove: ‘People Would Go Nuts’ If Bush Had Campaigned Against NBC, New York Times
Rove: ‘People Would Go Nuts’ If Bush Had Campaigned Against NBC, New York Times
Last weekend, top White House officials escalated its campaign to distance Fox News from the ethical standards of journalism. “It’s not really a news organization,” senior adviser David Axelrod said. Yesterday during the White House press gaggle, ABC’s Jake Tapper came to Fox’s defense, asking, “Why is that appropriate for the White House to say?” “You and I should watch sometime around 9 o’clock tonight. Or 5 o’clock this afternoon,” press secretary Robert Gibbs said, referring to Fox programs hosted by Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck.
Last night, Fox host Greta Van Susteren seemed pleased that Gibbs narrowed down the criticism. “I’m grateful that now they’ve at least refined it to two hours,” she said. But former top Bush adviser Karl Rove was incensed, complaining that “people would go nuts” if President Bush attacked NBC or the New York Times:
ROVE: I mean, imagine what would have happened if President Bush had said, “You know what, I’m not going to — I’m going to call NBC not a news organization because, well, MSNBC has some ugly left- wing opinion programming”? I mean, people would go nuts.
What would happen if somebody said, “You know what, the people who are working for The New York Times are not journalists because on the opinion page of The New York Times there are very liberal journalists and very liberal editorials?” I mean, people would be up in arms.
Watch it:
Rove must have a short memory. The Bush administration’s war with the New York Times started even before Bush assumed office. As a candidate, Bush called a Times reporter “a major league asshole,” and never apologized. In fact, President Bush never gave the New York Times a single interview throughout his presidency. (Update: Bush gave the New York Times interviews in 2001, 2004, and 2005.)
The Bush White House’s war with NBC News is more well known. In May 2008, then-White House counselor Ed Gillespie publicly sent a scathing letter to NBC News President Steve Capus, accusing them of deceptive editing and blurring the lines between “news” and “opinion.” Soon after, then-White House press secretary Dana Perino expounded upon the campaign against NBC from the White House podium:
PERINO: The reason that we sent the letter yesterday is because we had gotten fed up with the way that the President’s policies are being mischaracterized, or the situations on the ground weren’t being accurately reflected in the reporting. We had complained before. And it just reached a boiling point.
And indeed, Fox News did “go nuts”…in support of the White House.
Rove: Bush Administration Never Rejected A Request For More Troops From Afghanistan Commanders
Rove: Bush Administration Never Rejected A Request For More Troops From Afghanistan Commanders
This morning on ABC’s Good Morning America, former Bush adviser Karl Rove advised President Obama to “pay very close attention to the people you have put in command of the operation in Afghanistan” for their recommendations on strategy. Host Diane Sawyer than pointed out that if we’re listening to Gen. Stanley McChrystal and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen, they’re saying that “the reason we’re in the situation we’re in now is that this war was under-resourced, including during the Bush administration years.”
Rove quickly disputed those comments, saying, “I don’t believe that at the time, the military was saying we need significantly more. If there had been that cry, I suspect the previous administration would have been very responsive to it.” When Sawyer asked him if he was blaming the generals for not asking for more troops, Rove replied:
ROVE: No, I’m not. No. No. No. I’m saying that the United States had what, at the time, the military felt was an appropriate level of resources, and in retrospect, everybody now, says, I suspect, I wish we would have been doing more because the enemy, particularly as Iraq got better, the jihadists and al Qaeda needed a place to go, and they went to the Horn of Africa and they went to Pakistan and began to revitalize the efforts to attack Afghanistan.
As that grew, additional resources were sent by this administration and the previous administration to Afghanistan. But in retrospect, I think a lot of military experts say, we wish we would have been doing more. But that wasn’t what was going on at the time.
Watch it:
In 2008, Gen. David D. McKiernan, then the top U.S. commander in Kabul, specifically asked the Bush administration for more troops for Afghanistan, but was rebuffed:
“There was a saying when I got there: If you’re in Iraq and you need something, you ask for it,” McKiernan said in his first interview since being fired. “If you’re in Afghanistan and you need it, you figure out how to do without it.” By late last summer, he decided to tell George W. Bush’s White House what he knew it did not want to hear: He needed 30,000 more troops. He wanted to send some to the country’s east to bolster other U.S. forces, and some to the south to assist overwhelmed British and Canadian units in Helmand and Kandahar provinces.
The Bush administration opted not to act on McKiernan’s request and instead set out to persuade NATO allies to contribute more troops.
The war in Iraq was the main reason that Afghanistan was under-resourced. In July 2008, Mullen said, “I don’t have troops I can reach for, brigades I can reach to send into Afghanistan until I have a reduced requirement in Iraq.” Military officials have said that the Taliban was pretty much gone in 2002, but regrouped when the Bush administration decided to shift resources and invade Iraq.
Transcript: More »
Rove Says ‘Obama Doesn’t Need More TV Time,’ But He Argued Bush ‘Needed To Be Out Speaking Every Day’
Rove Says ‘Obama Doesn’t Need More TV Time,’ But He Argued Bush ‘Needed To Be Out Speaking Every Day’
In his WSJ op-ed today, which the paper headlined “The President Risks Getting Stale: Continuous TV appearances can’t rescue a bad argument,” former Bush adviser Karl Rove criticized President Obama’s interviews on five Sunday morning talk shows this past weekend. “Mr. Obama doesn’t need more TV time,” wrote Rove. “More talk doesn’t automatically lead to greater public support, but it can erode public confidence in your leadership.”
While the impact of Obama’s “full Ginsburg” is open for debate, it’s surprising to hear Rove criticize the White House for having Obama make so many public appearances. In his new memoir, former Bush speechwriter Matt Latimer writes that “Rove was of the belief that the president needed to be out speaking every day no matter what the subject”:
Other speeches were scheduled for no apparent reason at all. Karl Rove was of the belief that the president needed to be out speaking every day no matter what the subject. Sometimes Bush would be at the podium four separate times in twenty-four hours, talking about the war in Iraq, the Olympics, the economy, or the birth of Thomas Jefferson. And the next day there might be another speech on Iraq, one more on the economy and maybe a salute to Irish Americans. This obviously made it hard to broadcast a coherent message. [Latimer, pp. 181-182]
There has been concern among some that Obama’s media campaign to push health care reform could leave him overexposed. But the recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll says that’s not the case. Fifty-four percent of respondents said they see “the right amount” of the president.
Additionally, Rove asserts that “Americans have taken the measure of Mr. Obama’s health-care plan and, as his falling poll numbers attest, increasingly don’t like it.” But in reality, Pollster’s aggregation of public opinion surveys shows that support for both Obama’s health care plan and his handling of the issue has been increasing as of late.
Rove And Hannity: By Calling For Action On Climate Change, Obama Is Taking A ‘Jab At America’
Rove And Hannity: By Calling For Action On Climate Change, Obama Is Taking A ‘Jab At America’
Yesterday, President Obama delivered a speech at the U.N.’s climate change summit, saying the U.S. is “determined to act,” that “the threat from climate change is serious, it is urgent, and it is growing,” and “the time we have to reverse this tide is running out.”
Last night on Fox News, host Sean Hannity and former Bush adviser Karl Rove predictably mocked Obama. It’s “his mandatory jab at America,” Hannity said. “I love the blame America first,” Rove piled on. The anti-Obama duo then moved into global warming denier territory:
HANNITY: You know, we just came off one of the coolest years on record. [...]
ROVE: In 2006, only one major industrial economy in the world actually grew and at the same time reduced the absolute level of greenhouse gas emissions put out. Guess what that country was, Sean? The United States of America. He should be heralding our leadership in reducing greenhouse gases by applying technology and market economy to the problem of greenhouse gas emissions.
Watch it:
Actually, 2008 was the coolest since 2000, not “on record,” as Hannity claimed. In fact, according to a NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies analysis released in January, last year was likely the ninth warmest on record. The warmest ten years have all occurred since 1997. Moreover, the study said that we should expect the warmest year on record within the next few years:
NASA climate scientists released a new analysis today showing 2008 was the coolest year on record since 2000 but warned a new high temperature record could be broken in the next couple of years. [...]
“It still seems likely that a new global temperature record will be set within the next 1-2 years,” the authors said.
Rove’s global warming denier claim is slightly more sophisticated than Hannity’s but also highly misleading. While overall emissions dropped from 2005-2006 in the U.S., 2007 saw an increase from 2005 emissions. The 2006 decline was mostly due to a mild winter rather than as a result of any Bush administration policies as Rove suggested. Moreover, the U.S. wasn’t alone in seeing a drop in greenhouse gas emissions that year; the European Union’s emissions also dropped slightly during that same period.
Former Bushie: Rumsfeld tried to edit his own ‘Wika-wakka’ page, Rove spread rumors about a U.S. senator.
Former Bushie: Rumsfeld tried to edit his own ‘Wika-wakka’ page, Rove spread rumors about a U.S. senator.
In the new book that is causing “nervousness” amongst Bush loyalists, former speechwriter Matt Latimer reveals some of the dysfunction and disagreements in the Bush administration. HuffPost’s Ryan Grim reports:
– Donald Rumsfeld had to be talked out of editing his own entry on Wikipedia, which he referred to as “Wika-wakka.” He was a Drudge Report reader and used to watch YouTube clips that made fun of his press conference performances.
– Bush, when told that Idaho Sen. Larry Craig had been the latest GOPer to be caught in a sex scandal involving boys or men: “What is up with all these Republicans?”
– While Karl Rove was appearing on Fox News and writing op-eds as an independent political analyst, he was privately smearing Democrats. “Karl spread rumors through the White House that one of Obama’s potential vice presidential running mates — and a United States senator — had beaten his first wife. ‘Karl says it’s true,’ the president assured a small group of staffers. Then knowing Karl, he quickly added, ‘Karl hopes it’s true,” reports Latimer.
– For a commencement address at Furman University in spring 2008, Ed Gillespie wanted to insert a few lines condemning gay marriage. Bush called the speech too “condemnatory” and said, “I’m not going to tell some gay kid in the audience that he can’t get married.” (Of course, Bush ran his 2004 campaign telling that kid just that.)
– Bush on Jimmy Carter: “If I’m ever eighty-two years old and acting like that have someone put me away.”
Rove Lies: Obama Is Encouraging Students To Write To Him Personally For ‘Political Utility’
Rove Lies: Obama Is Encouraging Students To Write To Him Personally For ‘Political Utility’
Before President Obama delivered his speech to America’s schoolchildren today, emphasizing to them the value of “persisting and succeeding in school,” former Bush adviser Karl Rove fearmongered about the speech by making up provisions in the “classroom activities” that the Department of Education has suggested teachers could use to supplement the speech.
Last week, when conservatives first began freaking out about the speech, their main objection was to a line in the suggested classroom activities that said students could “write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president.” After receiving complaints, the Department of Education changed the section to read, “Write letters to themselves about how they can achieve their short-term and long-term education goals,” saying that wanted to make sure “the intent is clear.”
But on Fox News today, Rove said the provision was still insidious:
ROVE: I mean, look, this, the White House was tone deaf. They clearly had a purpose here, which was let’s have the president speak to every student in the country, let’s have a study guide, let’s have them write the president, then president can them back. In fact, they still have that in there. The president’s — the students are now being encouraged to write the president about sort of their life experiences, so the White House can then, you know, using the Department of Education budget, send out God knows how many, hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of letters to students signed by the president, saying thank you for writing this. Clearly has a political import. It’s clearly using the government’s budget in a way to advance the president personally. It’s the kind of thing that makes all Americans uneasy about what the White House is doing.
Rove closed by saying that “the purpose” of the speech “was partly good, partly political. It’s now been turned a lot more good, less political, but there still is a political utility to this, which is have them write the president and then using the Department of Education budget have the president write them back.” Watch it:
Rove is lying when he says “students are now being encouraged to write the president.” In fact, the only letters mentioned in the suggested activities for either Grades preK-6 or Grades 7-12 would be addressed to the students “themselves.” “Teachers would collect and redistribute these letters at an appropriate later date to enable students to monitor their progress,” says the Grades preK-6 packet.
Additionally, it’s ironic that Karl Rove would complain about “using the government’s budget in a way to advance” partisan politics. The Bush White House inserted politics into federal agencies in an unprecedented manner, using “asset deployment” to have administration officials boost GOP candidates with photo-ops and grants. For instance, in March 2008, then-Education Secretary Margaret Spellings announced a pilot program for the federal No Child Left Behind law, even though Minnesota didn’t have enough qualifying schools to participate in the program. Spellings announced the program during an appearance with then-Sen. Norm Coleman, who was in a tough race against Al Franken.
Sen. Bob Bennett: ‘The No. 1 assignment in 2009 is to kill Obamacare.’
Sen. Bob Bennett: ‘The No. 1 assignment in 2009 is to kill Obamacare.’
In Salt Lake City today, Sen. Bob Bennett (R-UT) held a fundraiser with former Bush adviser Karl Rove, where Rove declared that “Republicans will be defined this year by their effort to block Democrats’ efforts for health care reform.” “This year is going to be defined by Republicans and conservatives by what we oppose,” said Rove. After Rove praised Bennett’s health care plan, Bennett said that he agreed with Rove’s goal of killing health care reform:
Rove said that he supports Bennett’s work on the Healthy Americans Act – the health care bill Bennett is co-sponsoring with Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon – although he said it’s “not exactly the bill that you or I would like each and every section.”
Bennett said his bill is not a negotiating tool on health care, but it will be there as an alternative after Democratic reforms are blocked. “The No. 1 assignment in 2009 is to kill Obamacare,” Bennett said.
Another Republican member of Congress, Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY), also expressed a desire to “kill” health reform today. Asked on ABCnews.com’s Top Line today if “Sen. Kennedy’s passing” would “change anything about the political equation” for health reform, Barrasso replied that “What I’m hearing all across the country is ‘kill the bill.’” Watch it:
60 percent of Blue Dog Jim Cooper’s constituents disapprove of his actions on health care.
60 percent of Blue Dog Jim Cooper’s constituents disapprove of his actions on health care.
Blue Dog Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN) has long been viewed by many progressives as a “uniquely pernicious” opponent of health care reform. Now, a Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll has found that 60 percent of his constituents disapprove of his handling of the health care issue:
The poll also goes on to find that 61 percent of his constituents support the creation of a new public insurance plan that anyone can purchase. Cooper will be appearing with Karl Rove and other conservatives this Saturday at a conference titled “The Third Rail of Healthcare Reform: Cost,” yet he has shied away from holding a town hall meeting with his constituents.
Rove Claims ‘A Lot Of Economists’ Think The Stimulus Package Is ‘Retarding The Day Of Growth’
Rove Claims ‘A Lot Of Economists’ Think The Stimulus Package Is ‘Retarding The Day Of Growth’
Ever since the latest jobs report showed that fewer jobs were lost in July than expected, conservatives have been scrambling to claim that the slowing economic freefall has nothing to do with the economic stimulus package. Today, Karl Rove appeared on Fox News and claimed that “a lot of economists” think that the stimulus is actually “retarding” economic growth:
[T]hat’s what a lot of economists are saying. Our stimulus package is retarding the day of growth not accelerating the day of growth.
Watch it:
Actually, economists participating in the latest monthly Bloomberg News survey said that “recovery from the worst recession since the 1930s has begun as President Barack Obama’s fiscal stimulus — derided as insufficient and budget-busting months ago — takes effect“:
The economy will expand 2 percent or more in four straight quarters through June, the first such streak in more than four years, according to the median of 53 forecasts in the monthly Bloomberg News survey. Analysts lifted their estimate for the third quarter by 1.2 percentage points compared with July, the biggest such boost in surveys dating from May 2003.
Analysts say that the stimulus added at least 1 percentage point to economic growth in the second quarter of this year (though the economy still contracted). “The signs of the stimulus are there,” said Allen L. Sinai, chief economist at Decision Economics. “Government — federal, state and local — is helping take the economy from recession to recovery. I think it’s the primary contributor.”
Transcript: More »
Anti-EFCA group targeting Sen. Bayh paid Karl Rove Co. $100K in consulting fees.
Anti-EFCA group targeting Sen. Bayh paid Karl Rove Co. $100K in consulting fees.
In the last few days, the Economic Freedom Alliance (EFA) has created a website and placed billboards in Indiana pressuring Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN) to vote against the Employee Free Choice Act. On its website, EFA claims that the Employee Free Choice Act will “cost the U.S. economy 600,000 jobs in 2010,” which is a statistic taken from a discredited study by business sponsored scholar Anne Layne-Farrar. But EFA’s disclosure and expenditure form provides some insight into why it’s willing to employ falsehoods. After all, the EFA has paid $100,000 in consulting fees to Karl Rove and Co. in 2009.
This $20,000 fee was paid every month this year, February through June. The Wonk Room has more.
Memoir of former White House official reveals Bush thought Barney was ‘the son he never had.’
Memoir of former White House official reveals Bush thought Barney was ‘the son he never had.’
The Washington Post reports that there is “growing nervousness these days” among prominent conservatives about a forthcoming book by Matt Latimer, former speechwriter to President Bush, defense secretaries Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Gates, and GOP Sens. Jon Kyl (AZ) and Mitch McConell (KY). From a preview of the book’s contents:
[W]e hear what senior aides were saying privately after the Bush administration withdrew the Supreme Court nomination of White House Counsel Harriet Miers, or we find President Bush confiding wistfully (and sounding serious) that his dog, Barney, was the son he never had. Latimer was on Air Force One with Bush and Karl Rove after Rove announced his resignation.
We hear there’s a story of how Rove spoofed the overly formal national security adviser Stephen Hadley’s penchant for eating off a silver platter at late-night work sessions, while everyone else had cafeteria trays, by serving Hadley himself with a silver tray.
There are said to be interesting observations of some of his bosses on the Hill, including one who had trouble with basic facts and another who had a tendency to hide from his staff by barricading himself in his office.
Rove: It’s ‘dangerous to give Congress information.’
Rove: It’s ‘dangerous to give Congress information.’
Editor’s note: This post has been bumped up from earlier.
Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal revealed that the secret CIA program that Vice President Cheney allegedly ordered hidden from Congressional oversight involved plans to kill or capture al-Qaeda operatives. Last night on Fox News, top Bush adviser Karl Rove refused to comment when asked by host Bill O’Reilly if he knew anything about the program. “I want to limit my comments to what I’ve read in the newspapers and observations,” he said. Rove then appeared to make the argument that executive branch should not inform Congress of what it is doing:
ROVE: Look, it’s interesting. The CIA briefed Congress to this, I guess, in June. And the Congress immediately leaks it. That, itself is, a violation, I think, of several statutes and indicative of why it is so dangerous to give Congress information.
Watch it:
To clarify, Congress did not “leak” details of the secret program. The Wall Street Journal cited “former intelligence officials familiar with the matter” in its report. But Rove’s comment seems to confirm the Bush administration’s motives for routinely attempting to hide information from Congress.
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