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Rove Claims Congress Pushed WH to War

November 28, 2007 By lynne

Incredible. It’s hard where to begin without laughing uncontrollably, or crying. But Obermann knows. (Watch the video, it’s worth it.) Keith tells us that according to a Rove website – “whitehouse.gov” – that despite Rove’s current claim that the WH opposed voting on the resolution on Iraq at the time, on the first day of fall 2002 they had a press release “urging” passage of the resolution “promptly.” A week after the resolution to authorize force was approved in the House, WH.gov said Bush was “pleased” with the House vote. What’s more, former minority  majority  leader Daschle recounted his meeting with the WH in Sept 2002, asking Bush why the rush, and getting the response, “We just have to do this now.”

What appears to be happening here, is that Rove is trying to trick Americans into forgetting that the Republicans were in charge at the time of the House and virtually in charge of the Senate (since even with Jeffords’ switch, they threatened to filibuster everything, and you need 60 votes with these jokers) when this resolution was passed, in hopes that people will not vote more Dems into Congress in 2008. He wants to cast the shadow of “being rushed” to fake people into faulting someone other than the Bushies.

I mean, what the hell are these guys smoking, thinking that they can so blatantly rewrite history like this? Does anyone in their right mind think that there was any indication that the Bushies weren’t lobbying their asses off for this use of force resolution in 2002? Anyone?

Any comparisons to the book 1984 are now just simply too obvious for words. Good god.

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Filed Under: User Tagged With: bush, charley-rose, iraq, rove, war-resolution

Comments

  1. tblade says

    November 28, 2007 at 6:47 pm

    …PP? Eabo? What misinformation/distortion/lie will you guys through around to defend this particular lie? Or are the die hard Republicans beginning to get sick of this crap, too?

    • pers-1756 says

      November 28, 2007 at 11:54 pm

      From Scott Ritter (U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 until 1998):

      <

      p>

      “While there is no perfect approach to this thorny dilemma, and while people of good faith and high intelligence can reach diametrically opposed conclusions, I believe the best course is to go to the U.N. for a strong resolution that scraps the 1998 restrictions on inspections and calls for complete, unlimited inspections with cooperation expected and demanded from Iraq,” Sen. Clinton said at the time of her vote, in a carefully crafted speech designed to demonstrate her range of knowledge and ability to consider all options. “I know that the administration wants more, including an explicit authorization to use force, but we may not be able to secure that now, perhaps even later. But if we get a clear requirement for unfettered inspections, I believe the authority to use force to enforce that mandate is inherent in the original 1991 U.N. resolution, as President Clinton recognized when he launched Operation Desert Fox in 1998.”

      Hillary would have done well to leave out that last part, the one where her husband, the former president of the United States, used military force as part of a 72-hour bombing campaign ostensibly deemed as a punitive strike in defense of disarmament, but in actuality proved to be a blatant attempt at regime change that used the hyped-up threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction as an excuse for action. Sound familiar? While many Americans today condemn the Bush administration for misleading them with false claims of unsubstantiated threats, which resulted in the ongoing debacle we face today in Iraq (count Hillary among this crowd), few have reflected back on the day when the man from Hope, Ark., sat in the Oval Office and initiated the policies of economic sanctions-based containment and regime change that President Bush later brought to fruition when he ordered the invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

      <

      p>And whose name is on the Iraqi Liberation Act?
      http://web.archive.org/web/200…

      • tblade says

        November 29, 2007 at 12:33 am

        …how?

      • syphax says

        November 29, 2007 at 12:58 am

        When it doubt, blame Clinton!

        <

        p>Clinton’s Iraq policies were not perfect.  But these policies hardly forced Bush into Iraq, and hardly forced the Bush administration to do such a tragically poor job preparing for the aftermath of the initial invasion.

  2. raj says

    November 28, 2007 at 7:03 pm

    …the idea that Congress pushed the White House kicking and screaming into going to war in Iraq is almost too comical to imagine.  They made us do it! ROTFL.

  3. joeltpatterson says

    November 28, 2007 at 7:29 pm

    was how the President carefully studied Iraq’s history and culture and religions, learning to fluently read & speak Arabic in the process.

    <

    p>And you know why that sentence is true?

    <

    p>Because it is an untold story.

  4. laurel says

    November 29, 2007 at 8:47 am

    who can’t be firm in the face of a big, meanie republican-dominated congress?  I like it!  More, Karl, more!

    • petr says

      November 29, 2007 at 10:36 am

      *[new]  So Karl is saying George is a spineless weenie  (0.00 / 0)

      who can’t be firm in the face of a big, meanie republican-dominated congress?  I like it!  More, Karl, more!

      <

      p>While I don’t disagree with your sentiments, Oct/Nov 2002 was post-Jeffords defection and pre-Republican Senate (Tom Daschle was majority leader at the time.) So I wouldn’t consider it, at that time, ‘republican dominated’.

      <

      p>There are two stories here: one is the run up to the war, with Darth Bellicose (Cheney) and his Sith Apprentice Darth Tumor (Rumsfeld) actually making statements to the effect that congressional involvement wasn’t necessary for Presidential use of force. (I still get a chill when I recall listening to Rumsfeld give one of his daily briefings during the Afghan invasion.  Ugh. I could hear the snakes writhing just under his skin and I could feel the excitement in his voice. I’m serious. The man was thoroughly enjoying it…) The Senate, both Republicans and Democrats, disagreed strongly with this view. And it was the Senate, and the Senate alone, that kept Bush from going to war.  It wasn’t until after the GOP won the Senate, bringing along their rubber stamp, in Nov 2002 that Bush abandoned the UN, the weapons inspectors and invaded.  I’m convinced that if the Senate had stayed within Democratic control, we’d not have invaded. I’m also convinced that any body who rationally analyzes the facts will come to the same conclusion.

      <

      p>The second story, perhaps the spine of the first, is the pathological need for Rove to lie.  It’s quite disturbing and indicative of a deeply disturbed mind. That he’s been so ably abetted by those around him is even more disturbing. (At the risk of invoking Godwin’s Law I’ll stop here…)  I’d actually feel sorry for him, were it not for the impact his lies have had…  

      <

      p>Wingers, feel free to let fly with charges of BDS; which charges I’ll happily accept in the face of such disordered truth and such disastrous consequences… Or, put another way, is not ‘derangement’ the very pitch and  purpose of a lie?  

      • mojoman says

        November 29, 2007 at 11:28 am

        for public consumption, the issue of lying is irrelevant. We’re talking about Karl Rove here, it’s what he does.

        <

        p>My take is that he’s doing at least some of the following:

        <

        p>1.Selling books. He belongs in jail or worse, but Charlie Rose will let him shill.

        <

        p>2.Setting up a narrative to be used against Dem critics of the war. He’ll lay down the marker, wingnut ‘think tanks’ will expound on it, and now it’s in the public domain. Rush & Co. will be all over it.

        <

        p>3.Trying to salvage his(& Bush’s)legacy. I expect that every utterance and action during Bush’s last year and beyond, will be directed towards clouding the record. Bush is a disaster for the country & the GOP, and Rove is the guru behind the worst president in history. The 2008 elections will cement the Bush/Rove legacy, and Iraq is their fiasco.

        <

        p>I have nothing but contempt for what Bush/Cheney/Rove have done to our country, but despite their best efforts to create new  storylines, IMHO few but the 25%ers will be buying it.

        • raj says

          November 29, 2007 at 11:38 am

          …for their underwriters, let’s remember one thing.  The only thing that Rove is telling you is the “Bart Simpson” excuse.  Remember what that is?  “It’s not my fault.  I didn’t do it.”

          <

          p>I’d expect that of a 9 year old.  But not someone of Rove’s advanced age.

          • tim-little says

            November 29, 2007 at 12:13 pm

            Why? Age has nothing to do with maturity, and every profile I’ve seen on Rove suggests he never quite grew up. (Although equating his maturity level with that of a 9 year old does a disservice to 9 year olds.)

        • petr says

          November 29, 2007 at 12:32 pm

          *[new]  Like everything else Rove provides  (0.00 / 0)

          for public consumption, the issue of lying is irrelevant. We’re talking about Karl Rove here, it’s what he does.

          <

          p>Surely you don’t mean to excuse this behaviour? Minimize it? Gloss it over?

          <

          p>Perhaps you misunderstand me.  Karl Rove does not use lies like tools: in order to gain power in any machiavellian sense. It goes far beyond that. It’s a deep and deeply revealing illness and it is not irrelevant in the least. Not least because of the effect it has on the body politic.  You think George Bush is bad? I guarantee you that any of the Republican candidates, and one or two of the Democratic candidates, will be worse precisely because they’ve seen how far Rove has taken it. Then, they’ll run farther. It’s what they do. There is a pathology loose in Washington and the truly amoral (Romney? Guiliani?) WILL use it to gain power.  How much more relevant do you want it to get?

          • mojoman says

            November 29, 2007 at 1:15 pm

            on my part. I didn’t mean to minimize Rove’s lying, I meant to emphasize that he frequently lies, so IMHO the truth is irrelevant to him. Poor communication on my part.

            <

            p>As to whether or not Rove has an illness, I can’t say, but if  he does, then it seems to have been going around since at least Lee Atwater, maybe further back.
            I agree that Rove has been a cancer(!) on our political system, but what I was trying to point out is that Rove focuses on furthering the GOP cause, and the ‘truth’ is whatever he needs it to be.  

            <

            p>The latest Rove lie/gambit seems like he’s planting seeds for the future, in an attempt to salvage his legacy in the GOP pantheon. Keep in mind that within the 2006 election cycle, he went from being described as political ‘genius’ to whatever he’s described as now. You fill in the word.

  5. laurel says

    November 29, 2007 at 11:04 am

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