Rove Blasts Journalists' Role in Politics

Elsewhere, however, it was Steven Leser, writing for OpEdNews.com, who did a nice job of chewing Rove's statement to bits.

"When one examines Rove's record and then one again considers Rove's recent criticism of journalists' political ethics, the criticism is almost like Stephen Glass accusing someone of making up too many stories or Ted Bundy accusing someone else of being too violent," writes Leser. "Rove is a ruthless political operative whose only ethic is to win at any cost and by any method. Any ethical political organization would have banned his participation a long time ago. Fortunately for Rove, and unfortunately for the rest of us, there is the GOP and the Bush administration."

"There are some in politics who hold that voters are dumb, ill informed and easily misled, that voters can be manipulated by a clever ad or a smart line," said Rove, who is credited with President Bush's victories in the 2000 and 2004 elections.

Asked and answered, the press dilutes the effect but not by much.

Whoa, whoa! Now hold on there — don't go calling Karl Rove ignorant.

Seriously. Arrogant, negative, and corrosive I'll concede in a heartbeat, but absolutely not ignorant. The man is a smear campaign artiste, constantly with his ear to the ground listening for any rumor, any piece of detritus he can spin into front page brown gold. He has a stage magician's talent for misdirection, to deflect people from the plank in his candidate's eye to the mote in the competitions'.

It takes a lot to pull this off... creativity, disingenuousness, but most importantly, massive titanium cojones.

Excellent points, Richard Vallée

Rove talks of political professionals, but what kind of qualification does it take to be a political professional?

Rove has proved, twice, that almost anyone, regardless of their record, bankruptcy, inept management and ignorance, can be president, with perhaps a little help and manipulation from very well-connected "friends".

but what kind of qualification does it take to be a political professional?

Officially: to become a congressman, you must be 35 years old and be at least a naturalized citizen. And to become president, you must be 40 years old and be a natural citizen.

Unofficially: rich friends, an easily cowed media, and scads and scads of money.

It should be disturbing that the bar is so low, and yet, people vote for candidates who are simultaneously overqualified and yet so much less than what the country actually needs.

What do you mean the bar is so low? If the people elect someone to office, they want them there for a reason. Should the set the bar higher? I mean, with the bar as "low" as it is, in your eyes, its still the elitists that get elected. If it were get higher, lets say you need a college degree, or something like that, then it would not be "fair and equal" as some people cant afford to go to college.

Point is this, this was a country founded on commoner rule. The bar should be set on the ground, money should not even be a "requirement" to run for office, although that's impossible with the capitalistic society we live in today.

TDL, it more or less is on the ground. There's an age limit, and there's a nationality restriction. That's it.

The nationality restriction is so a first-generation immigrant can't become president and pass a bunch of laws obviously favoring a specific outside nation.

And the age restriction is to guarantee that only those people who, in theory, have enough life experience to represent a state or country gets in.

When I said "simultaneously overqualified and yet so much less than what the country actually needs", I was referring to these 50- and 60-year-old law-school graduates who are captains of politics and/or second lieutenants of industry (overqualified) and crooked as a dog's hind leg in water (much less than what the country needs).

When I say unofficial restriction, I'm talking about those things that aren't required to be elected, but since everybody who gets elected has them, anyone who doesn't have them can't compete. They're dismissed out-of-hand because they don't have the necessary experience with their own money (or other peoples' money), no matter how badly they mismanage it.

And just to bring this back full-circle, Karl Rove is exactly the kind of tool one needs in one's campaign toolchest to get elected these days: someone resourceful, gutsy, and completely without ethics or scruples.

I half expect you to rush to his defense, TDL; your nick hints at a slight ...bias.

The name is complete sarcasm, as I consider myself a liberal. The fact that you would see my name and and assume I have a bias opinion tells me you like to jump to conclusions. Please don't take that as an attack, I don't mean it that way, it's just my observation. If it's skewed, please let me know.

I believe the bar should be on the ground, and I feel everyone should have the equal right to run for public office. Theoretically we do, however, as you said, and I agree, we do not. The system favors money and heredity, in a sense.

You can't blame the qualities most politicians have on themselves, rather you need to point your finger at the people who elect them... If we elect the same kind of people over and over again, than those type of people will continue to run and as a result be elected. We all have the option of checking the box for the "I" on the ballot, but never do, because they dont have the money or "support" to put their names on every street corner.

I hate Karl Rove, he's the infection that ruins politics.

You can't blame the qualities most politicians have on themselves, rather you need to point your finger at the people who elect them... If we elect the same kind of people over and over again, than those type of people will continue to run and as a result be elected. We all have the option of checking the box for the "I" on the ballot, but never do, because they dont have the money or "support" to put their names on every street corner.

If we had a media that was not owned by the corporations who support these crooked SOB's and voting machines that worked I would agree with you. The American public largely has faith in their newspapers and television news. That faith has been betrayed. Despite claims of "liberal media" the only thing that's really treated liberally is the truth. More than half the Red States still think there were WMD's in Iraq and Saddam was connected to 9/11.

If that's not what the Rove camp counts on I don't know what is. The "news" can't even report that higher gas prices are creating the higher oil company profits. When a fact that clear is being spun into mumbo jumbo about Katrina and refineries, the sky's the limit with more complex issues. Sure, people should take more initiative to be informed but most of them are so exhausted by being wage slaves and battling illness and other debilitating hardships in their lives, challenging the trusted "news" sources doesn't happen.

The media doesnt make up the sound bites, nor do they normaly een utter them.
The GOP is ery good at keeeping eeryone in lock step. Everyone from radio pundant to senator uses the exact same carefully choosen words.
If it were truley the media, you would easily be able to recall democratic slogans.. other than the one the gop gave them as "tax and spend"
The dems really need to catch up on the NLP(Neuro Linguistic Programming) but the dems are much more loosely organised than the GOP.

"If the glove does not fit, you must acquit" (OJ Simpson trial). We've been living with sound bites for a long time : )

"The only security of all is in a free press. The force of public opinion cannot be resisted when permitted freely to be expressed. The agitation it produces must be submitted to. It is necessary, to keep the waters pure." --Thomas Jefferson to Lafayette, 1823. ME 15:491

"The functionaries of every government have propensities to command at will the liberty and property of their constituents. There is no safe deposit for these but with the people themselves, nor can they be safe with them without information. Where the press is free, and every man able to read, all is safe." --Thomas Jefferson to Charles Yancey, 1816. ME 14:384

"The man who fears no truths has nothing to fear from lies." --Thomas Jefferson to George Logan, 1816.

(Quotes retrieved from: http://etext.virginia.edu/jefferson/quotations/jeff1600.htm)

There are other quotes in that repository, both favoring and critical of the press, but overall (IMO)
recognizing the need for an independet press to inform the citizenry to best be able to act in support of government, and to reign in the same when neccessary.

And yes, we have been living with sound bites for a very long time...

"Give me liberty, or give me death", being one of the earliest for the U.S. political system ( http://libertyonline.hypermall.com/henry-liberty.html ).

I think Rove has a point: it is the way issues are presented in the media that makes the "short, memorable 'sound bite'" the basis our elections.

Sure he has a point, you just have to set asside his blatant hypocrisy and cynicism to see it. He himself has played the media exactly to this end, and spreading the short memorable sound bites accusing the media of being liberally biased, which it dutifully reports in a way that underlines the fact that it isnt really. He wanted to make short memorable sound bites to be the basis of our elections, has pushed it and exploited it.

The media presentation has a lot of problems, and the Bush administration has an unsurpassed record of exploiting those problems to distort and spin the serious issues facing Americans. Its extreme irony that Rove finds it useful to criticize the media at this point for how it falls prey to his manipulative schemes.

You're right. I cant believe this man hasn't been smeared all over the walls yet. I guess if he was, he would just tell his "followers" it was the liberal medias propaganda machine running full steam ahead, and they would believe it.

About a year or so ago, when Rove was indicted

whoopsie-
...when Rove was allegedly involved in the uncovering of the CIA (?) operative Plame, I wondered what his next position would be ( people coming into and exiting this white house come from, or return to, top-end consulting or top-level position jobs within major corporations or lobby PACs).
I surmised that the party he has so fervently, zealously helped bring to power, would perhaps go out on a limb to help him, instead of casting him off as dead wood.
But he would be a showman, a true carnival barker without equal, in whatever his 'position', in or outside the white house.

Funny thing, voodoo... the Democrats have already fired a salvo in that direction: the "Six for '06" initiative which someone already seeded a lambasting of elsewhere.

The cream of this particular jest? The lambasting was done not by Rove but by an "conservative political commentator," one of those pesky journalists that Rove blasts for being too liberal.

So how does that saying go again...? "The enemy of my enemy is my scapegoat?"

Unfortunately the press seem to still be the gannon/guckert softball tossing lapdogs. Shoot why not piss on the newsman's leg? What's he gonna do? IMSO They gave up the right to do anything or be valid in this struggle when they embedded themselves in the administration 5 yrs ago.

The correct thing: He defend the voters, instead of belittling their intelligence. This is clever, particularly from a man who live for and off manipulating voters:

True, dat. As a wise man once observed, "If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you. If you make people think, they'll hate you." Never has it been more true than today.

The fatal mistake that lets us know his judgment and career is at peril is that he antagonize the press.
...
Unfortunately the press seem to still be the gannon/guckert softball tossing lapdogs. Shoot why not piss on the newsman's leg?

And that's why the second mistake isn't such a mistake. There's no strawman like a living, breathing one. The watchdog threatens to expose the funny little man in the back with all the machinery, the big booming voice says "Ignore the man behind the curtain!"... and most people, with egos freshly fluffed, agree blindly. Oh, and they'll probably kick the dog for good measure on their way out.

The voters brought it on themselves, the media brought it on itself, and I see little left to do but look for ways to exploit it, or make both parties feel so blindingly stupid they have to start thinking anyway to come up with defenses.

Well I think the media brought it on the voters. But I do see your point Territan.

There, miasma, you get into a sort of chicken-and-egg argument. Did the voters show the bias first that the media chose to mirror to bring in the ratings, or did the media show the first images that tilted the viewers' opinions?

When faced with an argument blended with that deeply philosophical musing, the best course of action is to blame each side for its own actions, take no excuses, and force them to clean their own houses and hope that each one follows the suit of the other.

If only it could be applied on a grander scale. Also, if only there was a way to force either side to listen...

True, dat. As a wise man once observed, "If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you. If you make people think, they'll hate you."

I thought this an appropriate quote...

"A sect or party is an elegant incognito devised to save a man from the vexation of thinking." Ralph Waldo Emerson