Karl Rove's ambition "the transformation of America into effectively a one-party state"

[Ian62]

Karl Rove's ambition "the transformation of America into effectively a one-party state"

http://www.democracynow.org/2012/8/22/boss_rove_how_karl_rove_went


Extract 1
In "Boss Rove: Inside Karl Rove’s Secret Kingdom of Power," Unger writes that Rove’s ambitions are not simply about winning elections, but represent "a far more grandiose vision — the forging of a historic re-alignment of America’s political landscape, the transformation of America into effectively a one-party state."

Karl Rove really is a nasty piece of work.
He will do anything if he thinks that might give him some sort of political advantage.
That includes throwing CIA assets under the bus.
He is Macchiavelli incarnate.

Extract 2

AMY GOODMAN: "MC Rove," performed at the 2007 Radio and TV Correspondents Dinner, with NBC’s David Gregory, Karl Rove among the backup dancers. Yes, this is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh. And we’re speaking with Craig Unger. His new book, Boss Rove: Inside Karl Rove’s Secret Kingdom of Power. We’re going to turn right now to another scandal involving Karl Rove, the outing of former CIA agent Valerie Plame. The Bush administration outed her in retaliation for her husband Joe Wilson’s accusations that President Bush lied about Iraq’s alleged efforts to purchase uranium form Niger before the Iraq war. It was the whole deceit around weapons of mass destruction. Let’s begin by playing the famous comment of Joe Wilson in 2003.
JOSEPH WILSON: At the end of the day, it’s of keen interest to me to see whether or not we can get Karl Rove frogmarched out of the White House in handcuffs.
AMY GOODMAN: That was the famous comment of Joe Wilson, Valerie Plame’s husband, frogmarching Karl Rove out of the White House in handcuffs. Craig Unger, explain what the Valerie Plame scandal was and what Karl Rove had to do about—with it and why he was almost indicted.
CRAIG UNGER: Right. Well, the Valerie Plame scandal, of course, was—Joe Wilson had been an ambassador to African countries. He was sent to check out allegations that the Republic of Niger had sold or was trying to sell yellowcake uranium to Saddam Hussein. This became part of the 16 words in President Bush’s State of the Union address that called for war against and launched the war against Iraq. And the allegations, of course, were not just false, but they were based on forged documents. And worse than that, the forged documents had been revealed as forgeries, I found at least 14 times, within the administration before Bush’s speech, but they still got in it, and the war went ahead with it.
Since Wilson had discovered they were—the allegations were false, he later wrote a very famous column, an op-ed piece in the New York Times, saying what I found in Africa ["What I Didn’t Find in Africa"], and he revealed that. And this was destroying the Rovian narrative, the Bush administration’s narrative. So, in retaliation, they outed his wife, Joe Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, who was a CIAagent, and exposed her. And that’s what it was all about. And this showed that they would stop at nothing to maintain their narrative. They were trying to discredit Joe Wilson. I think they sort of didn’t realize exactly how far they were going. And this was potentially a crime, so this started the whole Valerie Plame investigation.
Now, Bush said he would fire anyone who was responsible for this leak. And one thing that’s absolutely clear is that Rove, though he was not the only one—Scooter Libby was later indicted and convicted—Rove played a very, very key role in this. And he did leak Valerie Plame’s name—rather, her identity, that she was a wife. At one point he said, "I didn’t say her name." Well, he said this is Joe — "Joe Wilson’s wife is a CIA agent. She set up everything." And he told that to Timemagazine reporter Matt Cooper. So, and Rove went on to lie about it again and again.




Extract 3
CRAIG UNGER: Right. Well, Rove did a lot of things that were sort of under the radar and that I think have enduring consequences, and they represent real threats to democracy. One of them was the U.S. attorneys scandal, and I think it was widely misunderstood. And, you know, this was—became best known when eight United States attorneys were fired for sort of not toeing the Republican Party line. Now, in fact, to me, the real question is not what happened in the unjust firing of those eight people; it’s what about the other U.S. attorneys who were appointed by the Bush administration and were toeing the party line? What were they doing? And what we see happening is that they were prosecuting Democrats, essentially. This is best—it came through best in—I think the most egregious case of this is in Alabama, and it’s the case of former Democratic Governor Don Siegelman, who will probably—in early September, will face going to jail for eight years. And I think this is one of the most egregious, unjust acts we’ve seen from the Justice Department.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: I want to turn former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman, who was found guilty in a 2006 corruption case. Critics say Siegelman was the target of a political witch hunt, in part orchestrated by former Bush administration deputy Karl Rove. Democracy Now! spoke to Siegelman about his case in early 2009. We asked if he believed Karl Rove was involved in his prosecution. Let’s just go to his response.
DON SIEGELMAN: I was brought to trial one month before the Democratic primary by Karl Rove’s best friend’s wife, who was the U.S. attorney in the Middle District of Alabama, on charges that the New York Times said have never been a crime in America. Grant Woods, who’s the Republican—was the Republican attorney general from Arizona, said that they couldn’t beat Siegelman fair and square, so they targeted him with this prosecution. We have sworn testimony from a Republican political operative, Jill Simpson, who said that she was on a conversation with my prosecutor’s husband, who said that he had talked to Karl Rove, and Rove had spoken to the Department of Justice, and everything was wired in for them to—for the Department of Justice to pursue me.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: That’s former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman speaking toDemocracy Now! in 2006. Siegelman is now appealing his prison sentence three weeks before he’s scheduled to report to federal prison to complete a more than six-year sentence.
CRAIG UNGER: Right. Well, I think Siegelman is absolutely right. I mean, it’s not the prettiest part of the American political system, but it’s sort of standard operating procedure that sometimes campaign contributors get political appointments. And in Siegelman’s case, Siegelman personally got zero dollars. He appointed a contributor to a non-paying state-appointed position. And if he’s to go to jail—George W. Bush gave appointments to over a hundred campaign contributors and was not prosecuted on any one of those. And it really has been standard operating procedure. Hundreds of ambassadors throughout the years, in one administration after another, have been campaign contributors.

[randome]

1. His 'ambitions' have already been lost.

He is a loser. He once was in a position where he could get away with sneaky shit but that was then. This is now.

[Ian62]

5. I disagree

Rove still has a heck of a lot of influence over the GOP.

He runs a SuperPac for Romney.

Karl Rove has had meetings with Ed Gillespie (Romney's campaign manager).
Aren't SuperPacs meant to be separate from campaigns?
lol - no one from the Dem side has said a word against it.

Rove advised Gillespie to say as little as possible on policy.
That is not surprising given Romney's policies and Swiss cheese budget plan.

[randome]

6. If he had an ounce of smarts left, why didn't he get a better candidate for the primary?

Why did he let McCain pick Palin? I hear what you're saying. He does have some power and some influence but I think the evidence clearly points to it not being very much.

[Ian62]

12. I think Palin was picked

as a rush/panic job to shore up the base and try to make the loss in 2008 less severe.
They didn't check first to find out how completely stupid and ignorant she was.
GOP were never going to win after the disasters of Bush.

Who else were the neocons going to pick in 2012?
Let's face it the GOP are not overwhelmed with an abundance of good candidates.
Which GOP do you think would have done better than Loser Romney?

Romney has 15 (16?) ex Bush staffers out of 22 on his Foreign Policy team.
Lead advisor is Dan Senor, rabid warmonger and ex Bush staffer. Acolyte of Kristol.
These people are nothing more or less than salesmen for the arms industry.
Some of them ARE ex senior arms company staff with a payoff from their arms company to join Romney's team.

I don't think Obama has made enough of Romney's links to GW Bush yet.
He is a Bush clone.
Bush had a 34% approval rating near when he left.
Bush has the worst job creation record since WW2.
Romney hasn't created a single nett job in 28 years, why would anyone think he would start creating jobs now?
He certainly didn't create any in Ma as Governor. It was so bad people voted with their feet - at a time of rising US population, Ma's population went DOWN.
Romney is identical to Bush. Bush didn't create any jobs either.

Obama ought to remind people, just how bad Bush was and how identical Romney is to Bush/Cheney.
The electorate have very bad memories. They need reminding.

Obama might be just saving it for after the Conventions.
I wouldn't argue with that.

Or he could bring it up in the 1st debate October 3rd.
Get Romney all flustered - it is pretty easy to do.
Actually that is probably best - leave it until the debate.
Romney cannot handle relatively simple q's - let alone that one.

Still waiting for Obama to air the good stuff against Romney.
I have a HUGE library of it.
Obama's library will be much bigger than mine, he has been preparing for Romney for over a year.
No doubt Obama has a team trawling through all Romney's nefarious and sometimes criminal business contacts.
There are lots.

[Avalux]

2. This was no secret 12 years ago when he helped steal the election for Bush.

Rove is a sick bastard, I spent quite a bit of time researching his history when Bush ran for president; after suffering under him as governor. Of course Rove is not alone in his twisted ideology; he has plenty of company.

[Wellstone ruled]

3. Rove is just another Mormon

looking for The White Horse Prophecy to be brought to fruition. Karl's just trying to find his Planet and his new harem. Boys or Girls?

[librechik]

4. why does he want a one-party state?

so his kind can control absolutely everything, from the military to women's rights to abortion to welfare--no more democracy. Only the rich can vote or succeed. Just like that bunch has always wanted. It's all about money and power and the power of money. They don't care about people, as far as they are concerned we should be glad to be slaves--oh and don't forget to pay your rent. Not quite like slaves.

[randome]

7. I don't think it's even that.

They just DO without thinking. It's a game and they want badly to win it. Taking a long term view is not something they are equipped to do.

[aquart]

8. Karl wants a nice comfy dictatorship.

Karl doesn't do well with long-range thinking.

[Blue Owl]

9. Hey Karl, go talk to a chair

We're not interested in your fucked-up notions of what a "democracy" is.

[libodem]

10. He means to

Decimate his opposition. He is not a worthy opponent. He cheats, lies and steals to get what be wants. He wants a Plutocracy for his rich friends. He'd be happy to serve under a king. He must have hated the French revolution when the peasants revolted. He stands for the power elite being in control. And eff the rest of us.

Did I say he is a bad man? He's a bad man.

[HopeHoops]

11. If the GOP keeps on its current path of self-destruction, it just might become one.

[bemildred]

13. Who gives a shit?

Another over-inflated political hack whose 15 minutes is up. Rove comes from a sub-category (political marketing consultant) which is pretty much defined by its lack of substance to begin with.

[otherone]

14. mission accomplished

..

[baldguy]

15. And they try to tag Obama as "Stalinist".

[Ian62]

16. A VERY strong case can be made for the RNC and Romney to be labelled as Stalinist.

The MAJORITY of Tampa delegates were against the rule changes.
The nays are clearly louder on this voice vote for the Rule 12 change, but Boehner declares the ayes have it.

&feature=player_embedded#!
(Ron Paul supporters were seated in the bleachers, so their voice in these votes was made quieter.)

The rest were brain dead, didn't think about it and accepted like lemmings.

The RNC rule changes effectively ensure the only voice in the Republican Party will now be the Presidential nominee, the media and those with vast wealth.
They will be the only people with enough resources to influence public opinion.
The voice of the grassroots has been silenced. FOREVER.

The Presidential nominee is now the de facto dictator of the Republican Party.
The RNC rules committee his Politburo.
The Presidential nominee is now able to appoint the RNC chairman who appoints the RNC rules committee.
This 138 member body can now change ANY rule with 75% approval.
You can imagine what happens to someone on the rules committee who does not toe the line.
No one else need be consulted.

http://ian56.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/the-case-against-mitt-romney.html
UPROAR in the Republican Party.
http://ian56.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/republican-party-in-uproar-against.html

Very similar tactics were used by Stalin to consolidate his power over the Communist Party in the USSR.

[tanyev]

17. I will laugh long and loud if he accomplishes it by fracturing the GOP.

Be careful what you ask for, Karl.