key Rove (RIP) strategy

Attack your opponents strong points.  Read many posts below that ham-handedly attempt to use this tactic.  Throw in a cup of "sour grapes" and NOW your cookin'.  Go Ron Paul!  Split the vote!

• key Rove (RIP) strategy - reveille
  • I enjoy reading the liberal posts - liberal democrat
    • Is that what liberals are about, really? Intolerance? nm - Observer (and not a neocon thank you so much)
      • Obviously the liberal mindset is... - Observing
        • Okay...let's examine this... - Observer
          • Twisting and turning - Observing
            • Once again...you prove my point. - Observer
              • right-wing rags - Observing
                • Well, for SCHIP I posted from the Library of Congress.... - Observer
                  • Well, that's a relief!!!! - Observing
                    • Ok, I was wrong...gave you too much credit. - Observer
  • You better hope he does split the vote... - Observer
    • uh huh huh huh uh huh - reveille
      • You better hope they don't give the nomination to - Observer
    • Just as an aside....if you really look at what is going on in this country.... - Observer

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Can the super-rich former governor of Massachusetts - the son of a Fortune 500 C.E.O. who made a vast fortune in the leveraged-buyout business - really keep a straight face while denouncing "Eastern elites"?

    Can the former mayor of New York City, a man who, as USA Today put it, "marched in gay pride parades, dressed up in drag and lived temporarily with a gay couple and their Shih Tzu" - that was between his second and third marriages - really get away with saying that Barack Obama doesn't think small towns are sufficiently "cosmopolitan"?

    Can the vice-presidential candidate of a party that has controlled the White House, Congress or both for 26 of the past 28 years, a party that, Borg-like, assimilated much of the D.C. lobbying industry into itself - until Congress changed hands, high-paying lobbying jobs were reserved for loyal Republicans - really portray herself as running against the "Washington elite"?

    Yes, they can.

    On Tuesday, He Who Must Not Be Named - Mitt Romney mentioned him just once, Rudy Giuliani and Sarah Palin not at all - gave a video address to the Republican National Convention. John McCain, promised President Bush, would stand up to the "angry left." That's no doubt true. But don't be fooled either by Mr. McCain's long-ago reputation as a maverick or by Ms. Palin's appealing persona: the Republican Party, now more than ever, is firmly in the hands of the angry right, which has always been much bigger, much more influential and much angrier than its counterpart on the other side.

http://www.truthout.org/article/the-resentment-strategy

For the upcoming elections both this year and 08, do you think democrats should

(a) aggressively lay out their agenda, which includes backing of security recommendations of the Sept. 11 Commission, a pay-as-you-go budgeting plan to end deficit spending and for deeper restrictions on lobbying activities.

OR

(b) Wait and allow the republicans party finish demonstrating their failures, i.e., rising gas prices, war policies, etc.

I was reading the article below and thought I'd ask the liberals for their point of view.

George Will –

1. "McCain loses his head." 


2. "McCain childish, shallow, unfit for presidency."


3. "McCain in a Glass House." 


4. "McCain flustered rookie playing in a league too high."


5. Compares McCain to the ultimate drama queen (Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland) /"off with his head" mentality after McCain says that Chris Cox of the SEC should be "decapitated."


6. "…McCain showed us his personality this week and made some of us fearful." 


7. "McCain shows he's not presidential."


8. VP pick "female Sancho Panza." 

Charles Krauthammer –

1. McCain VP pick "near suicidal."


2. "Bush Begat McCain."


3. McCain's "hidden agenda:  To kill the United Nations."


4. McCain has "Tempted fate one time too many."


5. "McCain is going down."


6. "Obama will be president."


7. "McCain's 100-year war."


8. "How many Hail-Mary's can one man throw?"

Ross Perot –

1. McCain's "classic opportunist, always reaching for attention and glory." 


2. Perot weighs in on the POW issue after paying for Carol McCain's medical bills following her horrible car wreck:  After he came home, he walked with a limp, she [Carol McCain] walked with a limp. So he threw her over for a poster girl with big money from Arizona [Cindy McCain, his current wife] and the rest is history." 


3. McCain, "unusually slick and cruel."


4. Cindy bails John out of gambling debts.

William/Bill Kristol –

1. Time for McCain to fire his entire campaign.    


2. McCain campaign is "stupid, pathetic, flailing."


3. "Palin represents a cancer on the Republican Party.  She is not even close to being qualified for the office she's seeking."


4. McCain has "derangement syndrome."


5. McCain should "stop unveiling gimmicky proposals every couple of days that pretend to deal with the financial crisis."

Joe McCain (John's brother) –

1. Pleading with campaign advisors to change strategy:  "Let John McCain be John McCain."


2. Loosening the tight (campaign) message control is needed because it has become "counter-productive"  and "counter-intuitive."


3. The campaign needs to make new ads that show John "not as crank and curmudgeon."


4. Decision to clamp down on press contact with intimates of the Arizona senator is "causing gangrene."

Ed Rollins –

1. McCain's prospects on winning the presidency have "vanished."


2. "You have to go give an alternative on the economy,"  To do otherwise could "give the Democrats not only the White House but sweeping congressional victories and a potentially filibuster-proof super-majority in the Senate." 


3. Has voiced his concern over a possible Obama "landslide."

I'm past convinced but time will tell just how politically motivated *Iraqi freedom* is to this administration.  How much you want to bet nobody gets it? 

I agree with Murtha, now that we have relieved Iraq of the Saddam regime the mission sould be getting our soldiers home safely.  But its not that easy with the new wave of terrorism that replaced Saddam's regime as a result of the war.

I still say though we have our own battles to fight at home and need to accelerate training what Iraqi men are willing to fight for democracy and do what we can to restore their infrastructure and get out.  With the right enthusiasm (or upcoming congress elections) it can be done.  ~Democrat

------------------------

Murtha Details His Exit Strategy

Jan. 13, 2006

CBS) Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., believes the vast majority of U.S. troops in Iraq will be out by the end of the year and maybe even sooner. In his boldest words yet on the subject, the outspoken critic of the war predicts the withdrawal and tells 60 Minutes correspondent Mike Wallace why he thinks the Bush administration will do it

“I think the vast majority will be out by the end of the year and I’m hopeful it will be sooner than that,” Murtha tells Wallace, this Sunday, Jan. 15, at 7 p.m. ET/PT.

“You’re going to see a plan for withdrawal,” says Murtha. He believes Congress will pass it because of mounting pressure from constituents tired of the war that could affect the upcoming midterm elections.

The political situation will force President Bush to accede to Congress, he says. “I think the political people who give [the president] advice will say to him, ‘You don’t want a democratic Congress. You want to keep a Republican majority, and the only way you’re going to keep it is by reducing substantially the troops in Iraq,’” Murtha says.

The president has said publicly that any decision regarding Iraq would be based on the situation there and not on Washington politics.

Murtha rejects the president’s argument that the war on terror is being fought in Iraq. “The insurgents are Iraqis – 93 percent of the insurgents are Iraqis. A very small percentage are foreign fighters….Once we’re out of there, [Iraqis] will eliminate [foreign fighters],” says Murtha.

“[President Bush] is trying to fight this war with rhetoric. Iraq is not where the center of terrorism is,” he says. “We’re inciting terrorism there....We’re destabilizing the area by being over there because we’re the targets,” Murtha says.

When Wallace challenges him by saying, “General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, says your comments are damaging recruiting and hurting the troops,” Murtha responds by saying it’s the military’s own fault. “[Troops] are rotated [into Iraq] four and five times. They have no clear mission,” says Murtha. “One of the problems they have with recruitment is [that] they continually say how well things are going and the troops on the ground know better.”

President Bush has said there are only two choices in Iraq: victory and defeat. And he has implied that Murtha is a defeatist. Murtha, of course, disputes that.

There have been 13 servicemen from his Congressional district killed in Iraq. Could the families of those dead be offended? Wallace asks.

“Well, I hope [those families] understand,” says the Vietnam combat veteran. “It’s my job, my responsibility, to speak out when I disagree with the policy of the president of the United States,” says Murtha. “All of us want this president to succeed…I feel a mission here, with my experience, that I have to help the president find a way out of this thing.”

So, Karl Rove is the one who outed Ms. Wilson.  He should be put in prison for years or better yet, let the people have him, let us tar and feather him..Definitely he needs to be brought up on charges.

Some of these people could actually witness Rove with a gun in his hand SHOOTING this lady and still defend his actions.  Their president can do no wrong, and whatever you do, do NOT confuse them with FACTS.  They are a scary bunch.

    Sunday 28 August 2005

Negative attacks have often been at the center of Karl Rove’s strategies. (Photo: Reuters)

    After all, Plame's identity was revealed in a Robert Novak column on July 14, 2003, just eight days after her husband, Joseph Wilson, had embarrassed Bush over his Iraq war rationale. And Rove had talked with Novak on July 9.

    As John Roberts, the Supreme Court nominee and federal appeals court judge, wrote last month in another context, the fact that sometimes dogs do eat homework is no reason to ignore more-logical explanations.

    Rove's record has been consistent. Over 35 years, he has been a master of dirty tricks, divisiveness, innuendo, manipulation, character assassination, and roiling partisanship.

    He started early. In 1970, when he was 19 and active as a college Republican -- though he didn't graduate from college -- Rove pretended to volunteer for a Democratic candidate in Illinois, stole some campaign stationery, and used it to disrupt a campaign event. Later, in Texas, he gave testimony in court that was embarrassing to an opponent of one of Rove's clients, even though it was not true, according to the book Bush's Brain, by two veteran Texas newsmen, James Moore and Wayne Slater.

    Negative attacks have often been the center of Rove's strategies. In a race between Texas Governor Mark White and his Republican opponent, Bill Clements, Rove wrote in a memo: Anti-White messages are more important than positive Clements messages.

    Often Rove has skated on the edge of being identified with certainty as the author of dirty tricks. In 1986, the discovery of a planted listening device in Rove's own office was widely publicized, damaging the Democrats. Many suspect that the source was Rove himself. This was never proven, but Moore and Slater say, Karl Rove remains a prime suspect. In 1989, Texas populist Jim Hightower was damaged by grand jury leaks for which, Moore and Slater say, Rove remains the most likely source.

    Again, most of the personal slurs against candidates who had the temerity to run against Rove's clients have not been pinned on Rove personally, but they follow a pattern. George W. Bush ousted Ann Richards from the Texas governor's office in 1994 after a whisper campaign focused on a small number of Richards appointees who were lesbians and even suggested that Richards was gay. Bush himself stoked the fire, saying some Richards appointees had agendas that may have been personal in nature.

    In 1990, Hightower's integrity was smeared. A federal investigation of his expenses produced news stories, but no charge, despite Rove's telling Washington reporters that Hightower and several aides face the possibility of indictment.

    In South Carolina in 2000, rumors circulated that John McCain was gay, had a black child, had a Vietnamese child, and got special treatment while a POW in Vietnam. In 2004, a direct link was established between the Bush campaign -- of which Rove was the architect, in Bush's words -- and the libels against John Kerry from the swift boat veterans. With such a history, is it possible that Rove encouraged the Catholic bishops who questioned Kerry's fitness to take Communion?

    Earlier this year, he none-too-subtly bestrode the church-state amalgam that helped elect Bush, telling a sympathetic and enthusiastic audience in Washington that conservatism is the dominant political creed in America. Always on the attack, Rove said just this June that liberals want to prepare indictments and offer therapy to terrorists.

    According to Moore and Slater, the strategy of attack has been constant throughout his career. Rove didn't just want to win; he wanted the opponents destroyed.

    Rove's connection to the Valerie Plame story was the center of attention in mid-July but cooled fast after Bush nominated Roberts to the Supreme Court on July 19. A LexisNexis search reveals 1,944 stories mentioning Rove in the week prior to the nomination, dropping to 1,111 during the week after. Now, with Bush in Crawford for a prolonged vacation, the story has nearly disappeared -- only 169 references in a late-August week.

    Still, more is likely to come out after Labor Day. A special prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, is expected to finish his two-year investigation this fall. His goal was to find the person who leaked Plame's identity as an undercover CIA agent -- a serious offense in the view of Bush's father. He and many other commentators have deplored the idea that the leaker may have been seeking political retribution at the expense of national security.

    So attention will inevitably turn back again to Karl Rove, who did talk with Novak and other reporters who wrote the story but who is now being portrayed by some as a neutral researcher in the Valerie Plame case. Yes, and sometimes dogs do eat homework.

From the Christian Science monitor online-- an interesting commentary on the Rove issue. 

(I note per the Conservative board that Mr. Wilson is now being vilified.)

 Am worried about Roe v Wade, but not about Rove. He is not worry-worthy - way too much effort. I AM concerned that nothing will happen to any of them that are involved in Plamegate unless it is some third-string low-on-the-totem-pole flunkie who will be completely blindsided when he gets blamed/fired/arrested. This shadow administration is far more evolved than the Nixon guys. I predict nothing will happen to them but what is worse, we have been lied to so often for the last 4+ years that most of us  won't even care. They are going to do what they are going to do...the end.  Here in Florida we voted last election for smaller class sizes and not to build a bullet-train between Tampa and Orlando. Jeb just changed both of those things. We are building the train set up and class sizes stay the same. I wonder why we vote on these amendments at all. What difference does it make? And so it is with D.C. It has not mattered for so long what a great number of us have felt about Iraq and all the lies surrounding it. They just do what they want. And before anyone says "we elected him" as a plausible argument, 51% is not a mandate. One half of this country is on the other side. Our country does not deserve the autocratic theocratic government that has been forced upon us.  When the shoe is inevitably on the other foot I suspect you won't like it either.

for those too busy posting inaccurate opinions to look things up.

working furiously with a ventiloquist as late as yesterday afternoon.

WASHINGTON - The White House is suddenly facing damaging evidence that it misled the public by insisting for two years that presidential adviser Karl Rove wasn't involved in leaking the identity of a female CIA officer. President Bush, at an Oval Office photo opportunity Tuesday, was asked directly whether he would fire Rove -- in keeping with a pledge in June, 2004, to dismiss any leakers in the case. The president did not respond. For the second day, White House press secretary Scott McClellan refused to answer questions about Rove.

_______________

This article says that the White House may have misled the public.  And, they apparently pledged to fire anyone who had leaked this information.  This has become interesting, hope it doesn't fade right away from the public view.

difference, and both words represent betrayal by government in one form or another. 

Women who believe in choice will see their rights digress and witness history go backwards.  CIA agents have already seen that they can't trust their government in a time of war.

Actually, Karl Rove has a very important job.  Because of him and the heat the administration has been taking because of his actions, Bush was forced to actually do his job and nominate a replacement for Justice O'Connor.  Very, very "hard work" before he spends the entire month of August in Crawford.

I think soon, though, y'all will see it didn't work.  Rove can't escape the heat that easily.  I believe you will find that Bush failed in getting the heat taken off of Rove, and he had to rush to do all that "hard work" for no reason at all!

x

I saw it briefly this morning and then it disappeared.  It said that Rove himself found out about Plame's undercover status from Novak, not the other way around!  The article made it sound like this affair was resolved, Rove was the good guy that we all know him to be, ha-ha. 

Well, I suppose I can just wait to see if it reappears.  Seemed surprising, but stranger things have happened.

I checked that "other" board to see if they were crowing about it yet but na-da, nothing so far.  Maybe I misinterpreted it.

Hilariously shows how the hipocrasy knows no bounds: 

http://www.indecision2008.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=184086

This above is a link to the Daily Show with John Stewart.  I love his show, and Stephen Colbert's.  I'm not a political junkie (yet) so I need a *lot* of comic relief with my politics in order to stomach it. 

Both sides are hypocrites, it's true.  But I swear, the Republicans are so much funnier.  The mental gymnastics they're having to go through in order to claim SP has "experience" alone is a sight to see.  (Watch the clip above if you don't believe me.  Oh, and you can see S. Palin making a good point near the end of it for all of you who are fans of hers.)  In fact, Jon Stewart said he's putting "county first" in supporting Obama, because McCain being the pres. would make his job (as a comedian) so much easier...

Oh, and have no fear, anyone.  I balance out the political comedy with a healthy dose of serious political coverage too.  The most serious I can find lately is the stuff on PBS.  You know, the calm, old-style journalism type, free of the crawl at the bottom of the screen, free of all the hype and wild graphics at the bottom of the screen, free of people shouting because they actually take turns letting each other talk.  Anybody else miss that kind of reporting, where it's kinda boring to watch and you have to actually listen and pay attention to more than sound bites?  Ah, well.  I'm rambling...

Yep, he has refused to show for yet another subpoena, this time because Bush seemingly wrote a letter 4 days before leaving office saying he didn't have to show up?  Give me a break!  This guy is such a crook and needs to be put under the jail.  I hope they fry him.  I wonder what would happen to any of us who refused to show up for a subpoena.....about 3 or 4 times, that is.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/182240/?gt1=43002

they keep the pressure on, because IF our govt has behaved irresponsibly we need to know.

about to come to an end soon?

I think October is going to be a very interesting month.

Dirty politics equals dirty water.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-rove13jun13,0,1520344,full.story?coll=la-home-headlines

From the Los Angeles Times

EPA Rule Loosened After Oil Chief's Letter to Rove

The White House says the executive's appeal had no role in changing a measure to protect groundwater. Critics call it a political payoff.

By Tom Hamburger and Peter Wallsten
Times Staff Writers

June 13, 2006

WASHINGTON — A rule designed by the Environmental Protection Agency to keep groundwater clean near oil drilling sites and other construction zones was loosened after White House officials rejected it amid complaints by energy companies that it was too restrictive and after a well-connected Texas oil executive appealed to White House senior advisor Karl Rove.

The new rule, which took effect Monday, came after years of intense industry pressure, including court battles and behind-the-scenes agency lobbying. But environmentalists vowed Monday that the fight was not over, distributing internal White House documents that they said portrayed the new rule as a political payoff to an industry long aligned with the Republican Party and President Bush.

In 2002, a Texas oilman and longtime Republican activist, Ernest Angelo, wrote a letter to Rove complaining that an early version of the rule was causing many in the oil industry to openly express doubt as to the merit of electing Republicans when we wind up with this type of stupidity.

Rove responded by forwarding the letter to top White House environmental advisors and scrawling a handwritten note directing an aide to talk to those advisors and get a response ASAP.

Rove later wrote to Angelo, assuring him that there was a keen awareness within the administration of addressing not only environmental issues but also the economic, energy and small business impacts of the rule.

Environmentalists pointed to the Rove correspondence as evidence that the Bush White House, more than others, has mixed politics with policy decisions that are traditionally left to scientists and career regulators. At the time, Rove oversaw the White House political office and was directing strategy for the 2002 midterm elections.

Angelo had been mayor of Midland, Texas, when Bush ran an oil firm there. He is also a longtime hunting partner of Rove's. The two men first worked together when Angelo managed Ronald Reagan's 1980 presidential campaign in Texas.

In an interview Monday, Angelo welcomed the new groundwater rule and said his letter might have made a difference in how it was written. But he waved off environmentalists' questions about Rove's involvement.

I'm sure that his forwarding my letter to people that were in charge of it might have had some impression on them, Angelo said. It seems to me that it was a totally proper thing to do. I can't see why anybody's upset about it, except of course that it was effective.

Asked why he wrote to Rove and not the Environmental Protection Agency or to some other official more directly associated with the matter, Angelo replied: Karl and I have been close friends for 25 years. So, why wouldn't I write to him? He's the guy I know best in the administration.

White House spokesmen said Monday that the rule was revised as part of the federal government's standard rule-making process. They said the EPA was simply directed by White House budget officials to make the rule comply with requirements laid out by Congress in a sweeping new energy law passed last year.

The issue has been a focus of lobbying by the oil and gas industry for years, ever since Clinton administration regulators first announced their intent to require special EPA permits for construction sites smaller than five acres, including oil and gas drilling sites, as a way to discourage water pollution.

Energy executives, who have long complained of being stifled by federal regulations limiting drilling and exploration, sought and received a delay in that permit requirement in 2003. Eventually, Congress granted a permanent exemption that was written into the 2005 energy legislation.

The EPA rule issued Monday adds fine print to that broad exception in ways that critics, including six members of the Senate, say exceeds what Congress intended.

For example, the new rule generally exempts sediment — pieces of dirt and other particles that can gum up otherwise clear streams — from regulations governing runoff that may flow from oil and gas production or construction sites.

Sen. James M. Jeffords (I-Vt.), who joined five Democrats in objecting to the rule, wrote in March that there was nothing in the energy law suggesting that such an exclusion of sediment had even entered the mind of any member of Congress as it considered the Energy Policy Act of 2005. Moreover, Jeffords wrote, the rule violated the intentions of Congress when it passed the Clean Water Act 19 years ago.

White House and administration officials disagreed.

At the EPA, Assistant Administrator Benjamin H. Grumbles said the rule responded directly to congressional action. He cited a letter from Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, endorsing it. He added that the rule still allows states to regulate pollution, and that it continues to regulate sediment that contains toxic ingredients.

Lisa Miller, a spokeswoman for another senior lawmaker, Rep. Joe L. Barton (R-Texas), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said Monday that the rule was designed to hold oil companies accountable for putting toxic substances in the soil, but not for dirt that results from storms.

When it rains, storm water gets muddy, regardless of whether there's an oil well in the neighborhood, Miller said. Congress told EPA to do this, and now they have. If there's oil in the water, a producer has to clean it up. If it's nature, they don't.

The change in the rule occurred last year when staffers in the White House Office of Management and Budget began editing an early version drafted by EPA technical staff. The Office of Management and Budget oversees another division, the Office of Information and Regulatory Policy, which critics complain has served as a central hub in the Bush White House for making government regulations more business-friendly.

A spokesman for the White House budget office, Scott Milburn, said Monday that the White House's involvement in making rules was intended to ensure that agencies issue regulations that follow the law.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino rejected the suggestion that Rove was involved in the rule change. Rove frequently receives requests, she said, and that he tries to reply and direct those requests to the appropriate people. She said that for environmentalists to accuse Rove of manipulating the EPA rule was a typical overreach by administration critics.

That is quite an overreach, when it was the United States Congress that passed the Energy Act in a bipartisan way to ask the EPA to undertake this rulemaking, she said.

In their March letter, Jeffords and his Democratic colleagues asked EPA officials whether the correspondence with Rove influenced the final rule.

A response written by Grumbles did not directly address the Rove question. But the Natural Resources Defense Council and other environmental groups assert that they know the answer.

We can't say that Karl Rove walked over to OMB and demanded these changes, said Sharon Buccino, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council's land program. But it is clear that there was direction coming from the top of the White House, and this was a result of the thinking of the White House as opposed to environmental experts at EPA.

Buccino called the rule yet another example of the Bush administration rewarding their friends in the oil and gas industry at the expense of the environment and the public's health.

In his letter to Rove, Angelo did not hide his political feelings. He thanked Rove for all you do, and added words of encouragement on another topic: The president has the opposition on the run on the Iraq issue.

His letter appeared to gain notice at the highest levels of the administration. Three months after Angelo sent it, a top EPA official wrote to tell him that the agency had decided to impose the temporary delay on the construction permitting rule for oil and gas companies.

The letter was copied to Rove, White House environmental advisor James L. Connaughton and then-EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman.