Let the site that has comments and no moonbats/wingnuts cast the first stone. Perusing some of the Plame/Wilson conspiracy theories in comments here, this site ain't it.

They hate Rove because he is good at what he does. He is better than them at politics, which makes them Sacred Victims in the Leftist theology.

Rove for CIA. If he could keep track of all these conspiracies and manage to succeed in discrediting CBS and other networks with not only plausible deniability but zero blowback, he should take over the CIA and begin operations against al Qaeda, North Korea, China, Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia post haste.

They don't hate Rove because he's good at politics, they hate Rove because just when you think he can't sink any lower into the mud he trots out something more disgraceful.

Ann Richards is a lesbo.
John McCain has an illegitimate black baby.
Max Cleland stands with Bin Laden.
John Kerry lied his way to high decoration in Vietnam.
Mission Accomplished.

etc.

There was a quote from the book Fletch that I stumbled across last night that would have been perfect regarding the TANG memoes:

"I must follow the journalistic instinct of being skeptical of everything until I personally have proved it true."

I wonder if Dan Rather could get all the way through that without choking.

Maybe if he read it off of a prompter and had a flask of whiskey in him.

You haven't seen Rove called Satan?

Um, interesting. I never heard any of that, JmaR. Maybe you're projecting.

Rove has always seemed to me to be part of a hatred.

Consider what would be the "best" anti-POTUS attacks:

1) too dumb to be fit for POTUS,
2) too Machiavellian to be fit for POTUS, and
3) too in bed with Big Biz.

Note that #s 1 and 2 cannot both be true. Since they began with #1, anti-Bush types cannot switch to #2. Also, all efforts to seriously pin #3 on POTUS have failed.

Thus:

- Continue #1 on Bush (ignore Kerry grades),
- Use Rove as target for #2, and
- Use Cheney as target for #3.

joe,

ummm....what haven't you heard of? Maybe I can project a little light on the topic for you.

Well, for starters, Max Cleland hasn't done a whole lot of standing since he dropped the grenade.

Hmmm.

"John Kerry lied his way to high decoration in Vietnam."

Actually this one is true.

Frankly if Rove were 1/20th as much of a mastermind as the liberals/democrats believe him to be then I figure we've got a couple years before we're all kowtowing to the Emperor of the Earth Rove.

This whole nonsense is just liberals/democrats screwing up entirely on their own, and then casting about to blame someone else because accepting blame for their own mistakes would make them less intellectually superior don'tchaknow.

i.e. same old schtick.

Ann Richards:

http://www.texasobserver.org/showArticle.asp?ArticleID=398

John McCain (from his campaign manager):

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/03/21/the_anatomy_of_a_smear_campaign/

Cleland:

http://thereitis.org/displayarticle156.html

Hey ed,

Actually, no that's just another rightwing lie.

"Liberals/democrats screwing up on their own"? Good Lord you people are fucked up.

joe,

Your joke would have been funny if a. there was any truth to it and b. you're supposed to be great "supporters" of our troops. How to cheapen a veteran. So Rove is not just a skillful political operative for you he's also a mentor/

Democrats' intense need to "get" Karl Rove always is like them trying to shoot down the moon because it's just too bright at night.

I, too, tried reading a few of those links (KOS) and found myself wondering, to the effect, that, well, EVERYone has human foibles in their past (if not present) and if you really, really try hard enough, you can manage to get Kevin Bacon responsible for the planet Mars.

We could discuss 'till Dooms Day -- and I'm sure liberals will be still trying on that very momentous occasion -- all the many possibilities and misperceptions, fears and projections upon Karl Rove, for starters (don't even get me started on Bush, as to the liberal accusations), but because there's never any resolution or understanding by liberals about nearly anything that's conclusive to the rest of us -- or at least reasonably acceptable, understandable -- and since KOS (and it looks like, also, Yahoo on their message boards) foots the bill for all the barking, at this point, I'd say go ahead and let them (bark, on KOS and Yahoo Message Boards) but, I sometimes worry about people in other countries who read the content and think it (KOS, etc. noise) represents the average American.

To those readers, it does not.

Yeah, it is a strange sort of argument. It reminds me of the "Bush knows where Bin-Laden is hiding" conspiracy that was popular on the left during the election. I never understood why that was supposed to persuade me to vote against Bush. Heck, if he knew that then he's doing even better than I expected.

But, you know, one thing here that can disprove one of those points over there on KOS...as someone who is supposedly a member of the vast, right-wing conspiracy, I've never heard before reading on KOS a minute ago that former Texas Governor Ann Richards was supposedly "a lesbian."

I mean, just never heard that. It's realistically possible, is my point, but unless I'd read KOS, I'd never have known that Republicans (and Rove, it's alleged over there) somehow brought about her end because she was a lesbian.

IF she's a lesbian - or WAS, and somehow today is no longer, whatever - then she only has the voting majority of Texas to blame for her dethronage because they wouldn't need Karl Rove to tell them to get her out of office, is my point, not in Texas, not Texas voters.

If she isn't, wasn't, well, then, no worries, she still has the voters to blame for her loss of office. Either way, trying to make Rove responsible for that based upon an alleged LIBERAL scandalising another liberal about her sexuality, supposed sexuality and/or rumored sexuality...it seems that they can blame everyone but themselves. Again it proves that liberals are the own worse enemies, and it usually involves cruel gossip used in pugalism among their own.

I got about halfway through it before I got tired of reading. Seems to be a lot of "he said, she said" going on in that post.

Oh, and I really liked the comparision of the Plame case to Watergate. That was a nice touch.

JmaR...so, you'd rather not even know, is that what you're suggesting?

I mean, Karl Rove accomplished all that, so you/KOSbats allege, and yet the point is, what? That it's a crime that he (allegedly, supposedly) brought that information forward, while it'd been best to leave it unsaid, undiscussed?

The reasoning escapes me. As to Kerry, it's been proven by many people and a lot of paperwork that he did, in fact, "manufacture" most of his history...at least, it's history he wrote himself, and not autobiographically. If he'd just opted to author an autobiography and not attempted to make his fantasy fiction fact, he'd have had a far better chance of being taken seriously.

He DID require a Presidential pardon, after all, just to be sworn into the Senate. Another of Jimmy Carter's caves to communism.

Interesting to note that it took liberal JmaR all of two comments within which to arrive at pejoratives and the use of the word, "f***" in some capacity, in reference to everyone else.

Ahhh, there's the bark.

S, I've been posting here for some time and I have used the f-bomb on one and maybe two occasions. Sometimes it just needs to be said as long as it's not gratuitous, it adds emphasis, so cut me a little slack on that....I mean Dick Cheney launched one at a Senator on the Senate floor :)

As for your other comments in regard to Rove and his "history" I can only ask this: have you even seen the Aflac commercial with the duck in the barber shop with Yogi Berra? The frustrated noise the duck makes as he listens to Yogi babble nonsensically...that was me as I read your last post.

I, too, tried reading a few of those links (KOS) and found myself wondering, to the effect, that, well, EVERYone has human foibles in their past (if not present) and if you really, really try hard enough, you can manage to get Kevin Bacon responsible for the planet Mars.

Of course, -S- is someone who can read drivel like "The Pink Swastika" and consider it to be the unquestioned, scholarly truth. It just goes to show that people can believe any stupid theory as long as it agrees with their preconceived notions.

Re: JmaR's "proof links"

Ann Richards: First and foremost, it's an opinion piece. Beyond that, though, the author quoted someone who accused Rove of being behind a campaign that portrayed Richards as too tolerant of gays, a fact that wasn't established through investigation.

John McCain: Another opinion piece that never mentioned Rove, and only offered speculation that Republicans were behind the alleged "smear campaign" involving push polling, and cites an email from BJU's president.

Cleland: Essentially Cleland's rant in response to ads that called attention to the fact that Cleland voted against establishing the Department of Homeland Security. The ad was sponsored by Cleland's opponent's campaign. Again, Rove isn't mentioned.

Gee, JmaR, you sure went to a lot of trouble to prove absolutely nothing.

Here, have another glass of Kool-Aid. It helps the crow go down.

Why the desperate need to protect Rove?

Have we officially shifted from being pro-war to merely more anti-anti-war than the next?

JmaR -

I followed the links that you provided. I'm not going to offer you "Kool-Aid" (as another did above), but I would like to ask if you have any more substantive, on-point links than those. Although one did amuse me with a Machiavelli - Rove reference (see my apparently precognitive post above ;-) ), I hope that you can offer others that offer support to you position.

As for your original three above, the first seemed to me to hand-waving whining and the other two did not even mention Rove at all. (If the latter two did, I missed it in two readings each.)

Look, I have read a number of investigative journalistic articles on Karl Rove. The over the top smear is his signature, Republicans know this. How can his defenders play so loose with reality on this one. He was fired from Bush 41's campaign for leaking to Bob Novak for Christ's sake!

http://bnfp.org/neighborhood/Lemann_Rove_NYM.htm
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200411/green
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20010305&c=2&s=dubose
http://www.prospect.org/print/V14/2/reich-r.html
http://www.vanityfair.com/commentary/content/articles/050620roco03

The left has been blaming it's own inability to nominate an electable candidate on Rove for so long it's downright funny. They're even blaming Ann Richards loss on Rove, I'm from Texas and I can tell you that ignorant ho lost because she's an ignorant ho, she nailed the lid on her election coffin when she said the voters weren't smart enough to decide one way or the other on concealed carry laws and promised to veto the referendum. No matter which side you were on on that one she told you that lacked the intelligence to decide. Vetoing a referendum is the stupidest thing any politician can do and only a lefty is stupid enough to try it. Nobody cared if she was a lesbian, nobody cares now, that whole story is the left's excuse for having a candiate that couldn't win once she opened her mouth and let the people know what she thought of them, which is what all lefties in office think of voters. They assume that since a few people like JmaR and jYt need a nanny state to survive that we all need one. Why is the people that believe so strongly in Darwin are the very last ones that want to see it applied? Could it be that they know they can't survive due to the fact they are mentally unfit?

Let me know if you recognize a pattern with this guy.

I've been trying to figure out a way to plant the following conspiracy theory onto Kos or DU...

"When Sandra Day O'Connor announced her resignation on July 1, Rove saw his opportunity. He called up Matthew Cooper of Time Magazine and released him from his obligation to protect his sources. Just five days later, Cooper revealed the bombshell Rove had tried so hard to hide... but now that bombshell was part of Rove's brilliant plot to complete everything the radical right had worked so hard to achieve.

"Only a man with an ego the size of Rove's would have dared to throw HIMSELF to the media wolves in order to gut Roe v. Wade--and only Rove would have dared to think he could BOTH get himself through the ensuing media firestorm and sneak a radical right judge past a distracted media in the process. Yet he may have succeeded..."

bullwinkle, take a deep breath and get off the ledge man. I hate to be the one to break you the bad news, but it looks like the blue states are nannying the red states so who's fooling who? Kepp sucking off that teat baby:

States Receiving Most in Federal Spending Per Dollar of Federal Taxes Paid (please note the red state/blue state divide):

1. D.C. ($6.17)
2. North Dakota ($2.03)
3. New Mexico ($1.89)
4. Mississippi ($1.84)
5. Alaska ($1.82)
6. West Virginia ($1.74)
7. Montana ($1.64)
8. Alabama ($1.61)
9. South Dakota ($1.59)
10. Arkansas ($1.53)

In contrast, of the 16 states that are "losers" -- receiving less in federal spending than they pay in federal taxes -- 69% are Blue States that voted for Al Gore in 2000. Indeed, 11 of the 14 (79%) of the states receiving the least federal spending per dollar of federal taxes paid are Blue States. Here are the Top 10 states that supply feed for the federal trough (with Blue States highlighted in bold):

States Receiving Least in Federal Spending Per Dollar of Federal Taxes Paid:

1. New Jersey ($0.62)
2. Connecticut ($0.64)
3. New Hampshire ($0.68)
4. Nevada ($0.73)
5. Illinois ($0.77)
6. Minnesota ($0.77)
7. Colorado ($0.79)
8. Massachusetts ($0.79)
9. California ($0.81)
10. New York ($0.81)

JmaR -

On your additional links, I've had to quit after two. Those are l-o-n-g articles (at least the first two were) but I may be able to get to the others later.

Both of the ones I did read seemed to be admiring and whining at the same time - an impressive feat in of itself!

I was impressed that they whined over some historical demands for recounts by Republicans and then, in the same article, seemed to complain about the Supreme Court of the US forcing recount limits on Bush v Gore. I wonder what the author's views would have been on the recent Washington State election, where the recounts kept being pushed by Democrats and then, once the Democratic candidate got ahead, discouraged and fought against them therafter?

I do agree that the first two articles seem to deify or devilify (not sure that last one is a verb, "demonize" seems inadequate) Rove, but most admiringly. There is a sly veiled accusation or two of wrongdoing, but all of those that I was aboe to spot seemed quite carefully cloaked in legal-distancing phrasing. ("There were rumors" or "Some said" or stuff akin to that) I'd guess that the authors rightly feared lawsuits and legal counterattacks, and so couched their dirty stuff with legal advisers as editors.

So, I agree that the first two new links:

- praise Rove for political acuity,
- state that in rough-and-tumble elections, he seems to have emerged the victor well more often than the loser, and
- made hear-say level, carefully veiled accusations of possible wrongdoing.

I think you are asserting the last of the above three to be proven facts. The first two of those articles did not make such any such asertions, let alone offer any proof. They simply quoted someone(s) as saying bad things had been done, and then the articles tried to leave non-actionable inferences available to the readers that SURELY those things did happen and OBVIOUSLY it had to have been Rove.

(Inferences only, though, and weakly done at that. To do more would have been to solicit an invitation to court. If they'd had any shred of proof, they'd have done more. The inference that I draw is that they had no evidence.)

Tell me, possibly save me the time, do the other links do any more than make legally-careful vague posturings? If so, which one?

Karl Rove is an alien...from Mars....yeah...that's right. And I'll bet that there is a link to some website somewhere proving it.

jim, I appreciate the civility.

While there may be not be enough documented evidence to convict Rove in a court of law, there is certainly enough anecdotal evidence to connect the dots. How many reports of the same patterns of smear can this guy leave in his wake before you'll concede that he's taken the art of the political smear to new heights? Among his formidable strengths is his ability to cover his tracks. In fact, he's earned himself the distinction of having a phrase coined in his honor: The Hand of Rove. If a political opponent got smeared something ugly while running against a Rove client, who do you think did the deed?

I thinks it's weasely not to concede that this guy is a slimeball. He is, and he's a danger to this country for a number of reasons. What more can I say?

bullwinkle writes:

They assume that since a few people like JmaR and jYt need a nanny state to survive that we all need one.

Why does not believing in the conspiracy theories put forth on this site about Plamegate mean I need or support a nanny state? As I've said before, I think that this is all a hugely overblown issue, but the conspiracy theories put forth in WizBang's comments section are really over the top. If Jay Tea wants to lampoon crazies (an the KOS poster certainly qualifies), he really doesn't need to go to other boards. He just needs to read a few of the comments right here.

Looks like more examples of liberal dishonesty, either JmaR doesn't know the difference between a donor state and a nanny state or he thinks we don't. Nice try, but still dishonest, still liberal, and still stupid. Then jYt tries to convince us that he's not a liberal or that liberals don't want a nanny state. Another nice try, both pathetic attempts might fly on Kos, why don't you two take it over there?

Jeez -- now, refusing to believe in a Rove-masterminded conspiracy -- to do what, tell the truth in order to put the news in its proper perspective? -- is "believing conspiracy theories."

War is peace. Love is hate.