The Rove Remarks

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The Rove Remarks

By
Jamey Hecht

First of all, here's the AP news item:

Rove: Dems Didn't Get 9/11 Consequences
By Sam Dolnick, Associated Press Writer
Wed Jun 22,11:21 PM ET
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050623/ap_on_re_us/rove_sept_11&printer=1
;_ylt=AmXLtxJ0BWfHEv9FQN3lYKpH2ocA;_ylu=X3oDMTA3MXN1bH
E0BHNlYwN0bWE-

In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

Speaking in a Manhattan ballroom just a few miles north of ground zero, Karl Rove said on Wednesday night that the Democratic party did not understand the consequences of the Sept. 11 attacks.

"Liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers," Rove said. "Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 and the attacks and prepared for war."

Rove, President Bush's chief political advisor, spoke at the state Conservative Party's annual dinner. He praised the conservative movement's success, calling it "the guiding philosophy for the White House, the Senate, the House."

Rove said the Democratic Party made the mistake of calling for "moderation and restraint" after the terrorist attacks.

"Conservatives saw what happened to us on 9/11 and said we will defeat our enemies. Liberals saw what happened to us and said we must understand our enemies."

Rove also denounced Sen. Dick Durbin's comments comparing interrogation at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp to the methods of Nazis and other repressive regimes. He said the statements have been broadcast throughout the Middle East, putting American troops in greater danger. Durbin has since apologized for the remarks.

"No more needs to be said about the motives of liberals," Rove said.

Copyright © 2005 The Associated Press

The headline on CNN says, "Democrats: Rove Should Apologize Or Resign." We say, keep it up! Keep hitting 9/11. It draws more attention to the guilt Mr. Rove's masters bear for deliberately neutralizing the United States Air Force during the attacks. Crossing The Rubicon was published in October 2004; that's eight months ago now. The case against Cheney is well known. And due to the heroic efforts of thousands of activists and researchers, millions of people in the US realize that elements of the US government (including the top of the military) were directly involved in accomplishing the attacks. Yet the regime keeps pumping attention onto them, confident that the majority will remain ignorant and that the big money is invulnerable to the public anyhow.

But the regime is in a bind: it needs the high-octane political fuel that 9/11 provides, but that fuel is getting more and more expensive. Rove finds the stuff irresistible and keeps turning to it when he's in trouble - the entire RNC last year was a bestial orgy of 9/11 exploitation, but with the fake election behind us it's getting a little awkward, no?

Insulted at last, the Democrats are now calling for Rove's resignation (and, once again, for Rumsfeld's). That may be futile, or it may succeed. If it does, it may be an orchestrated episode intended to make the Democratic Party credible - then more popular, and then in power behind some long-anointed eminence blonde. Or just maybe there is some genuinely public pressure behind their move to shove back at this sadistic bully. Ironically, Turdblossom's outrageous remarks include some truths that ought to be repeated:

Rove said the Democratic Party made the mistake of calling for "moderation and restraint" after the terrorist attacks.

"Conservatives saw what happened to us on 9/11 and said we will defeat our enemies. Liberals saw what happened to us and said we must understand our enemies."

The best thing I've heard on this issue comes from Canadian journalist Barrie Zwicker: "The psychological trick at the heart of September 11th is that people confuse their compassion for the victims with their certainty about who the perpetrators are."

Go see "The Exonerated," a dark drama by Jensen and Jessica Blank. Then discuss the death penalty with your - ahem - "neighbors" (what are those, again?). You may find that most of the pro-capital punishment arguments are not only driven by purely emotional appeals, they also elide the issue of wrongful conviction. The U.S. beat the hell out of thousands of ladies and gentlemen and kids in Afghanistan (which was murder, not war), almost none of whom had anything to do with the attacks - whereas those most responsible (for both 9/11 and the Afghan atrocity) are now pouring their contempt on the rest of us.

Yet look again at Rove's words: "Conservatives saw what happened to us on 9/11 and said we will defeat our enemies. Liberals saw what happened to us and said we must understand our enemies." Let me end with a list of the ironies that dangle from this remark.

(1) The speaker claims to be a follower of Jesus of Nazareth.

(2) The enemies, Mr. Rove, are in the mirror.

(3) Most of the hijacker-patsies were from a country whose boots your boss is still polishing.

(4) The attack on Afghanistan was allegedly a retaliation against the Taliban for harboring bin Laden, but the Afghanis suffered bitterly under the Taliban - as under their predecessors and under their current successors. The real point was Caspian oil, which turned to be relatively meager, and the restoration of the heroin crop and its river of free money - which did resuscitate Wall Street, temporarily. Peak Oil is nibbling on it (DJIA is down 200 points since Tuesday) and will soon start to devour it.

(5) The killer (by which I mean this administration and its condottieri; Rove is just one of the teeth in its head) chides us for being too merciful with those he framed. Shakespeare is spot-on here, too:

The mercy that was quick in us but late,
By your own counsel is suppress'd and kill'd:
You must not dare, for shame, to talk of mercy;
For your own reasons turn into your bosoms,
As dogs upon their masters, worrying you.
(Henry V, II, ii)

(6) Maybe Moveon.org was anti-war in 2002, but the DNC was not. Lately, however, all the blood on their hands is starting to interfere with the big Democrats' golf game, so they've been "distancing themselves" from it. Their point is that Afghanistan and Iraq are two separate wars; they supported both, but now they are free to withdraw their support for the bigger disaster since it did not proceed from 9/11. The Republican position is that nobody is free to withdraw support from either war, because they are one continuous response to 9/11, a "war on terror."

(7) "Conservatives saw what happened to us on 9/11 and said we will defeat our enemies. Liberals saw what happened to us and said we must understand our enemies." Look at this remark through the prism of just one word - a word that this junta does not know, but one of Rove's high-profile victims, Mr. McCain, knows quite well: Vietnam.

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