MetaFilter posts tagged with Rove

A Formal Debate About George W. Bush With Some Unusual Players

WCityMike — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 09:34:19 -0800

On December 4, 2008, at NYC's Symphony Space, NPR's Intelligence Squared program conducted an Oxford-style debate. As their future debate schedules in Australia, England, and America show, the propositions of such debates are routinely phrased strongly to provoke debate, and this was no exception. The motion that was put forward was: "Resolved, that Bush 43 is the worst President of the last 50 years." [mp3, 23 MB, 50 min.] What lifts this above the reams of media and multimedia already spent on this issue is that, moderated by ABC's John Donvan, this premise was debated — under formal debate guidelines — by Jacob Weisberg, Sir Simon Jenkins, Bill Kristol, and ... Karl Rove. The BBC airs "Intelligence Squared", in which Oxford-style debates are conducted. In Oxford-style debates, experts take opposing sides of a proposition. Each has an opening statement, which are followed by rebuttals, audience questions, and two-minute closing statements. (The show itself would be worthy of its own front-page post, given the caliber of intellectual discussions that take place.) The American version of the show is distributed by NPR, who makes a free podcast of it available (iTunes, RSS). Jacob Weisberg, Slate's editor-in-chief, argued for the premise, as did Sir Simon Jenkins, a Guardian columnist, formerly of the Sunday Times. Arguing against the premise was Bill Kristol, the Weekly Standard's editor-in-chief and the chief of staff to former vice-president Dan Quayle (in 1990, his debate opponent had called him "Dan Quayle's brain"), and Karl Rove, who has advised Bush since his initial 1977 House run and served as his Deputy Chief of Staff (for West Wing fans, think Josh) from February 2005 to August 2007. The debate opened with opening argument from all four debaters.

Weisberg stated he was sympathetic to many of Bush's causes, which he felt were executed badly, and said that the invasion and occupation of Iraq were mismanaged, constitutional rights were trampled, goodwill was ruined, and the economy was mismanaged.
Kristol stated we've been safe since 9/11; that we've won Iraq; that they increased the economy by 18%; began offering the prescription drug benefit; that, when Bush entered, al Qaeda was ascendant, Hussein wasn't contained, and North Korea and Iran were developing nukes; and that "Obama's presidency will be the major respect and continuation of the Bush presidency."
Jenkins opened by saying he liked Bush initially, but that what made America's reputation was the moral founding of our actions, and that Bush "snapped the backbone."
Rove apologized to any audience members sensitive to sulfur or brimstone¹ and proceeded to address what he termed the "drivebys" in the other arguments: that No Child Left Behind was per-state because the states should be engaged; that the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief had offered 2 million retroviral drugs; that 21 of the 22 Democrats in favor of NAFTA voted against for CAFTA and free trade purely for politics; that March '00, under Clinton, had the Dow down 38%, the NASDAQ down 78%, and the S&P down 50%; and stated that as to Iraq, "Look, do we wish ... that the weapons were there and it was justified under those terms? Yeah." (The audience at that point booed loudly.)

Audience questions proceeded.

An audience member asked that if the gross American population is generally wise en masse, and if what Rove said about Bush's successes are true, why is his approval so low? Rove replied it was an unpopular war and a tough economy, and that four had lower approvals: Carter, Nixon, Johnson and Truman.
Jenkins was asked if Bush's low approval rating was good for Obama (in terms of how he would be compared to Bush), or bad for him (in terms of what point from which he starts his Presidency). Jenkins said that 9/11 was Bush's starting point, and that we'd done what the terrorists wanted: restrict liberties and behave in a certain way. The moderator noted Kristol had said elsewhere that we won, as the terrorists were on the run. Kristol replied that al Qaeda was now a losing proposition; that we curbed civil liberties less than Roosevelt post-WW2 or Kennedy, Johnson or Nixon during Vietnam; and that Goldsmith and Mukasey moved some of those curtailings back. Weisberg noted that Goldsmith was drummed out for that. Kristol said that terrorists don't get civil liberties, Rove noting that terrorists shouldn't get Miranda rights. Weisberg didn't think so either, but said they should have some. Rove replied that the policy wasn't as if they were going to round up the audience, but that if they ran into a U.S. citizen on a battlefield abroad, he'd be treated as a terrorist, not a citizen. Weisberg noted acquittals, and Rove championed that as the system working. Kristol went on to indicate America didn't go to war against Muslims; Jenkins disagreed, saying that there were "lists of people who vanished." Rove called this lunacy.
Jenkins was asked by an audience member that if Bush had gone only to Afghanistan, what would Hussein have done: been neutral, allied himself with us, or supported al Qaeda? Jenkins responded he didn't believe terrorism to be state-sponsored. Weisberg indicated he was in support of Hussein's removal, but not without allies and not unilaterally.
Kristol was asked who he believed the worst President in the last 50 years to be, and responded that he believed Johnson made the worst mistake (Vietnam), but did great things with civil rights and Medicare; that the most corrupt was clearly Nixon, and that the most incompetent was Carter.
Rove was asked if the intelligence had been accurate, would the invasion have still happened? Rove responded no; that Bush was concerned about human rights abuses and Iraq's disregard for U.N. resolutions, but would have pursued a containment strategy.
An audience member asked that if Bush got credit for our post-9/11 safety, does he then get the blame for 9/11 itself? Rove responded that they wish they had been more alarmed. Weisberg noted that Clarke's book said that because Clinton had been focused on Iraq, Bush wasn't interested as he was actively reversing all of Clinton's policies.
An audience member asked as to the Bush Administration being the biggest domestic spenders, excepting Homeland Security and Iraq. Rove responded that Clinton's last budget (FY01) increased discretionary domestic spending by 15%, and that Bush reduced it to 7% (FY02), 4% (FY03), 2% (FY05), and 0% (FY06-8). Kristol indicated the biggest domestic expenses were for the two most popular implementations: the tax cuts and prescription drug benefit.
Weisberg and Jenkins were asked to name courageous decisions by LBJ and Carter, and to compare Bush and Iraq to JFK, LBJ and Nixon and Vietnam. Jenkins noted he had been in Vietnam at war's end, and felt its withdrawal was more competent ... that we had just lost by a bit, and could've stabilized it had we stayed longer. He felt that the punitive element was one of the fundamental problems of Iraq. Weisberg noteed that Johnson said goodbye to the South for Democrats for generations in order to further civil rights.
Weisberg and Jenkins were asked how Obama should deal with "Islamofacism" and how such dealing would differ from Bush. Weisberg responded that the focus should be on Afghanistan, on withdrawing from Iraq without it reverting, and questioned whether our lack of post-9/11 incidents was due to policy or chance. The audience member said that he didn't feel that the answers were responsive; that Hussein was supporting terrorism with payments, medical treatment, and a training camp; that Democrats such as Sen. Kennedy had echoed the WMD claims; and that Gaddafi had been successfully cowed by our actions.

Two-minute summaries closed the debate.

Kristol compared Vietnam body counts (55,000 servicemen and 2 million citizens) to Iraq (4,000 servicemen), believing Vietnam to be far wose than Iraq.
Weisberg said that Bush's failure to unite the country as he himself did as a Texas governor and as Roosevelt did after Pearl Harbor showed a lack of character: that he wasn't interested in policy, and didn't tolerate dissent or opening his mind to alternatives.
Rove stated that dissent was allowed, echoed Kristol's Vietnam claims, and stated that "[t]o suggest that he's not interested in ideas is that pecuiliar form of Bush hatred that causes people to lose their rational senses about the man."
Jenkins noted 2 million Iraqi citizens were camped outside Damascus because of their fear to return home, and that 66% of Iraqi Christians had been driven out of the country; he said he liked Bush's initial courtesy, moderation, and belief in humble governance, but that he believed Bush allowed the politics of fear, the "most corrosive of all forms of politics", to ruin him; and that America's power obligated it to show restraint, which it had not.

Intelligence Squared judges who "wins" a debate not by who has the greater number of people agreeing with them at debate's close, but instead by how many people changed their opinion during the course of the debate. The debate opened with 65% believing Bush was the worst President in the last 50 years, 17% disagreeing with that, and 18% undecided.² It closed with 68% (+3%) agreeing to Bush being the worst, 27% (+10%) disagreeing, and 5% undecided; since Rove and Kristol had acquired the larger portion of the undecided, they were considered to have won the motion. ¹Not editorializing by yours truly, he actually did. ²Upon hearing this, Rove joked, "I demand a recount."

The Politics of Radicalized Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money

Parallax.Error — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 12:25:08 -0800

Bush had Karl Rove. But the original wiretapping President needed brains too. Introducing Kevin Phillips. He predicted the prolonged Republican dominance of Washington 1970-present and advised the Ford and Reagan presidencies. He predicted a more liberal 1990s and when the Bushies killed his party he became uttery disgusted. Recently he spoke about the influence of the christian right, our addiction to oil, and America's debt (public and private) at the University of California Santa Barbara. Some Reviews of his work: New York Times on Phillip's books 1969-2005 Salon Review of American Theocracy Previously on Mefi in 06 and in 2004

Rove Resigns

Ethereal Bligh — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 04:31:51 -0800

Karl Rove Resigns. The man known as “Bush's Brain” and whom Frontline called “The Architect” will leave office at the end of August.

The Illustrated Guide to GOP Scandals

trinarian — Mon, 14 May 2007 04:16:41 -0800

The Illustrated Guide to GOP Scandals

... Karl Rove, a handful of the party's most tech-savvy computer gurus and the former Republican Ohio Secretary of State, created, owned and operated the vote-counting system...

amberglow — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 19:44:57 -0800

Network Hosting Attorney Scandal E-Mails Also Hosted Ohio's 2004 Election Results --...more than ample documentation to show that on Election Night 2004, Ohio's "official" Secretary of State website -- which gave the world the presidential election results -- was redirected from an Ohio government server to a group of servers that contain scores of Republican web sites, including the secret White House e-mail accounts that have emerged in the scandal surrounding Attorney General Alberto Gonzales's firing of eight federal prosecutors. ...

The hardest working pres in show business

textilephile — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 08:13:55 -0800

"A year ago my approval rating was in the 30s, my nominee for the Supreme Court had just withdrawn, and my vice-president had shot someone. Ah, those were the good ol' days." Attendees at the Radio and Television Correspondents' Association dinner had some special entertainment, courtesy the President and MC Rove (YouTube, 4 minutes).

"i honestly don't have a recollection..."

amberglow — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 15:23:07 -0800

"I do not recall" --meet Lurita Doan, Administrator of the GSA (Our mission is to help other agencies better serve the public by meeting – at best value – their needs for products and services, and to simplify citizen access to government information and services.), and hear about the powerpoint presentation from Rove's office all about electing Republicans in 08 and how her agency should help. Her office supplied it to Congress--but it was just a (GOP) "team-building exercise" and "brown-bag lunch". (YouTube) Read up on the Hatch Act too.

Scooter throws Turd Blossom under the bus

ibmcginty — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 17:23:13 -0800

Politics/PlameFilter: In opening arguments today in the Plame investigation perjury case against Vice President Cheney's former Chief of Staff I. Lewis Libby, the prosecutor portrayed Libby as an agent of a Cheney-driven media offensive. Perhaps the biggest surprise of the day came from Libby's attorney, who portrayed his client as a White House-chosen scapegoat for Karl Rove's misdeeds. A conservative reporter saw in Libby's emerging defense a "dramatic split inside the Bush White House." An MSNBC host asked whether this hullabaloo could lead to Cheney's resignation. Background on the case. Liveblogging of today's arguments from an anti-administration perspective.

Half of U.S. still believes Iraq had WMD.

ArunK — Sun, 06 Aug 2006 14:23:23 -0800

Half of America apparently still thinks so, a new poll finds, and experts see a raft of reasons why: a drumbeat of voices from talk radio to die-hard bloggers to the Oval Office, a surprise headline here or there, a rallying around a partisan flag, and a growing need for people, in their own minds, to justify the war in Iraq.

So much for Karl Rove's claim that it's wrong to think of U.S. voters as [uninformed and gullible.] Or "There are practitioners of politics who hold that voters are dumb, ill-informed and easily misled, that voters can be manipulated by a clever ad or smart line," Rove said. Previously discussed here. Thank you Fox News.

Remember the 2003 study (PDF) by the University of Maryland's Program on International Policy (PIPA)? It found that "Fox News viewers were "significantly more likely to have misperceptions" about the Iraq war than all other media consumers." Also the study found that "[t]hose who receive most of their news from Fox News are more likely than average to have misperceptions." For instance, of the "three key misperceptions" -- which the study listed as "the beliefs that ... links between Iraq and al-Qaeda have been found, that WMD have been found in Iraq and that world public opinion approved of the US going to war with Iraq."

"Intentional and malicious exposure"

bardic — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 13:19:05 -0800

Newsfilter: Former CIA officer Valerie Plame sues Cheney, Rove, Libby, close on the heels of columnist Robert Novak kinda-sorta coming clean about his role.

The Grinch that Stole Fitzmas

Heminator — Tue, 13 Jun 2006 07:21:27 -0800

Newsfilter: Rove won't be charged in CIA leak case. More coverage here, here, and here.

Wedding Bells Toll, But Not For You

digaman — Thu, 18 May 2006 09:29:07 -0800

NewsFilter: Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the chapel, teh gay menace strikes again. The GOP-dominated Senate Judiciary Committee backs the Constitutional amendment to prohibit states from recognizing same-sex marriages. In a fractious hearing, Republican chairman Arlen Specter shouted "Good riddance!" when Senator Russ Feingold (D-Wisconsin) walked out. Laura Bush recently advised her party's candidates not to campaign on this issue and to handle it with "great sensitivity." Maybe next time.

"Beam me up" - Scotty

mkultra — Wed, 19 Apr 2006 07:10:43 -0800

Scott McClellan resigns; Karl Rove sidelined. (NYT) The promised "shakeup" of the White House begins.

God's Own Party

digaman — Sun, 02 Apr 2006 09:53:52 -0800

Former GOP senior strategist Kevin Phillips wrote the political Bible of the New Right, The Emerging Republican Majority. He coined the term "Sun Belt." He voted for Reagan twice and still considers himself a staunch Republican. But now Phillips, the author of a new book called American Theocracy, is warning that the party of George Bush and Karl Rove ("W brand Republicans," in the phrase of GOP pollster Jan van Lohuizen) has become "God's own party" -- the champion of a convergence of "petroleum-defined national security; a crusading, simplistic Christianity; and a reckless credit-feeding financial complex." Phillips also cautions that the W-brand party's "sense of how to win elections comes out of a CIA manual, not out of the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution." [Phillips was also discussed here.]

Rove Concealed Top Secret Paper Warning Bush Iraq Intelligence False

Postroad — Thu, 30 Mar 2006 11:41:46 -0800

Insulating Bush Karl Rove, President Bush's chief political adviser, cautioned other White House aides in the summer of 2003 that Bush's 2004 re-election prospects would be severely damaged if it was publicly disclosed that he had been personally warned that a key rationale for going to war had been challenged within the administration. Rove expressed his concerns shortly after an informal review of classified government records by then-Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen J. Hadley determined that Bush had been specifically advised that claims he later made in his 2003 State of the Union address -- that Iraq was procuring high-strength aluminum tubes to build a nuclear weapon -- might not be true, according to government records and interviews

Exit Card, Rove Flips?

digaman — Tue, 28 Mar 2006 06:39:44 -0800

Intrigues at the White House: Andrew Card, Bush's longtime chief of staff -- the guy who briefly interrupted the President's reading of The Pet Goat one rough morning in 2001 and took heat for the Katrina and Dubai debacles -- is out, replaced by budget director "Yosh" Bolten, the one-time founder of a club called "Bikers for Bush." Meanwhile, is Rove rolling over for Patrick Fitzgerald, and if so, what's the angle?

Hijacking Conservatism

digaman — Sun, 12 Feb 2006 09:31:19 -0800

What unites hardliners like Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter, and Rush Limbaugh -- their uncompromisingly conservative take on politics? In a provocative blog post titled Do Bush followers have a political ideology?, Glenn Greenwald persuasively argues otherwise. He believes that the conservative movement -- traditionally against big government, excessive spending, and federal intrusion into the private lives of Americans -- has been hijacked by something much more dangerous: an authoritarian cult of personality, or as Greenwald puts it, "a form of highly emotional mass theater masquerading as political debate."

The Increasingly Unfriendly Skies

digaman — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 15:20:15 -0800

Is your name James Moore? If so, you may be a terrorist. Or at least the NSA thinks so, having added that name -- which also happens to be the name of the author of Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential -- to its mysteriously targeted and infamously mismanaged "No-Fly" list [previously discussed here.]

Insulation in High Places

digaman — Tue, 13 Dec 2005 20:40:44 -0800

Bush in the Bubble. Newsweek's analysis of the man who is possibly "the most isolated president in modern history."

NOC, NOC, Who's There

digaman — Tue, 18 Oct 2005 16:23:47 -0800

Why outing Plame mattered. If you wonder what's really at stake behind all the media buzz around the Fitzgerald indictments, read this lengthy and cogent analysis by Stratfor's no-nonsense George Friedman. "Rove and Libby had top security clearances and were senior White House officials. It was their sworn duty, undertaken when they accepted their security clearance, to build a 'bodyguard of lies' -- in Churchill's phrase -- around the truth concerning U.S. intelligence capabilities... The minimal story -- that they talked about Plame with a reporter -- is the end of the matter."

Did Dick make him do it?

insomnia_lj — Tue, 11 Oct 2005 19:23:47 -0800

Did Dick make him do it? The Huffington Report claims that both the Wall Street Journal and Bloomsburg News are working on stories indicating that Vice President Dick Cheney is the target of the special prosecutor's investigation into Plamegate. George Stephanopoulos also recently claimed that a source close to the investigation told him that Cheney and Bush were involved in discussions on how to handle the Wilson affair that may have led to the leak. Meanwhile, Cheney's chief spokesman has left the country until October 26th, two days before the conclusion of the grand jury investigation.

Cultivating the Source

digaman — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 02:33:15 -0800

With admiration, Scooter Libby.

Judith Miller Released from Jail

kirkaracha — Thu, 29 Sep 2005 21:59:07 -0800

Judith Miller Released from Jail and will testify before the grand jury tomorrow after getting a waiver from her source, Scooter Libby. Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has assured Ms. Miller's attorney that "he intended to limit his grand jury interrogation so that it would not implicate other sources of hers." (More from Editor & Publisher and New York Times; statements by Miller and the Times publisher and executive editor.)

WTF!?

delmoi — Thu, 15 Sep 2005 21:45:42 -0800

Karl Rove. Karl Rove Will be in charge of the Gulf Coast reconstruction after Katrina.

James Marcinkowski on the Plame Affair

russilwvong — Fri, 22 Jul 2005 19:20:47 -0800

Testimony of former CIA case officer James Marcinkowski on the Plame Affair, via David Corn. Now that the US government has exposed a CIA case officer and endangered her contacts, it will be much more difficult for CIA officers to recruit informants in the future. Any undercover officer, whether in the police department or the CIA, will tell you that the major concern of their informant or agent is their personal safety and that of their family. Cover is safety. If you cannot guarantee that safety in some form or other, the person will not work for you and the source of important information will be lost. ... What has suffered perhaps irreversible damage is the credibility of our case officers when they try to convince our overseas contact that their safety is of primary importance to us.