It’s interesting to see how Karl Rove attempts to talk sense to Republicans who want to cause a government shutdown over Planned Parenthood funding. For starters, he doesn’t dare question the accuracy or legitimacy of their cause. Instead, he cites polling numbers that show that the American people do not side with the opponents of Planned Parenthood, definitely don’t want a shutdown to happen over the issue, and would overwhelmingly blame the Republican Party in Congress if there is a shutdown. He even goes so far as to point out that only about half of Americans have even heard of these selectively edited videos, as if a present lack of awareness would be a reasonable justification for stopping the effort to raise awareness.
This is not the kind of stuff that is very convincing to people who are on a moral crusade.
Rove seems to know this, however, so after he’s done trying to argue that it’s a political loser, he takes it step further an accuses the shutdown proponents of being the best friends of abortion. A shutdown, he says, “would be a disaster for the pro-life cause.”
Republicans in Congress who want to risk a shutdown over Planned Parenthood have an obligation to spell out how they would get it done. They can’t. That’s why any Republicans who engineer a shutdown will be unwitting allies of the abortion movement. Life is too important to let the GOP’s suicide caucus damage the cause with such an ill-considered effort.
I think calling these pro-lifers the “suicide caucus” is unlikely to win any converts to his point of view. I imagine that Rove knows this and either can’t help himself or has some other audience in mind. After all, the Wall Street Journal‘s editorial page is right-wing drivel, but it isn’t drivel that is read widely by the type of wingnut that is taken in by these cheap shot videos.
I suspect that Rove’s intended audience is made up of members of Congress, and that’s why he spent all that time talking about polling numbers.
Rove is a slippery little bugger, too. Notice all the little ways he’s dishonest and annoying in this piece. He refers to supporters of Planned Parenthood as members of “the abortion movement,” as if supporting an organization that does more than any other to support women’s health were necessarily even primarily related to abortion, and as if we need a “movement” to support the law of the land for the last forty-two years.
Notice how he says that Republicans who refuse to fund the government “risk” a shutdown, as if refusing to give the president a budget he can sign creates only a chance of agencies running out of money.
Finally, look carefully at the following:
At least 31 congressmen have signed a letter circulated by South Carolina Rep. Mick Mulvaney saying that they will not vote for any budget that funds Planned Parenthood. They, too, lack a strategy to get a defunding measure signed into law. Some of these congressmen would use a failure to defund Planned Parenthood as an excuse to get Republicans to vote with the Democrats to kick John Boehner out as speaker.
Think about that formulation: “use a failure to defund Planned Parenthood as an excuse to get Republicans to vote with the Democrats to kick John Boehner out as speaker.
That’s just greasy.
Why would Democrats vote for John Boehner as Speaker? They wouldn’t be voting to kick anyone out; they’d be loyally voting for their own leader, as is always done in these elections (unless you’re a wingnut who wants to lodge a protest). The Republican usurpers would be relying on the Democrats to continue this normal practice and not save Boehner.
Rove is still one of the most dishonest political operatives we’ve ever seen, but he’s without a doubt the most overrated one, too.
Yabbut he has The Math.
That was one of these:
What the heck is that?
an equivalently valid illustration for Rove’s dubya-assigned nickname “Turdblossom”.
(Not sure I actually want to see that, though!)
Perhaps you are giving Rowe too much credit. He is a pollster… Full stop. He not a very good one but he got W elected governor and president. And he is totally amoral. He speaks only to his version of the “truth” he sees in the numbers. Yes that truth is pretty reptilian though.
I’m not sure who he thinks his audience is. And since Trump and Fox fired each other yesterday I’m not sure they know either anymore.
Sounds like the very definition of smoking hole.
I do like his term “suicide caucus”. I think I will keep it.
he’s more of a poll consumer, and we saw how good he is at that on election night, 2012.
he’s more of a poll consumer
Well, how else could he measure the effectiveness of his dirty political tricks before election day while he still has time to tweak the tricks?
Yes, that’s more accurate. And a bad one.
But he is amoral and reptilian in his “analysis”.
But in thinking about it more I think he is now struggling to relevant. His happy talk of the past isn’t believable to even Fox viewers. And I think he wants to make sure that he is no longer in any way accountable for the GOP debacle.
Rove should be buried with Dick Cheney.
Today.
Oh, let this be the point where we can state the last throes began. The last throes of Rove. This oped does nothing to take any of the politics out of the budget process. Rove is the champion of taking governing out of the budget. Note he blames each side yet he can not suggest a way forward that results passing a budget both sides agree to.
Oh, good Lord, THIS.
Thanks, shan.
It’s not Rove’s world any more. His style of emotive discourse is outmoded. Look at Trump and Fioriana for the current state of Republican rhetoric.
I take issue with one of base statement of your whole piece: “I suspect that Rove’s intended audience is made up of members of Congress…”.
Rove knows damn well no RW congress critter is going to listen to him. Rove’s intended audience is made up of Uber wealthy, rightwing political donors. These guys know that the govt shutdown would probably be a disaster. They are going to give their $$$ to someone. By demonstrating that he can add 2 and 2 and get something close to 4, they will be inclined to give their political $$ to rove and not the pacs/super pacs of the TP.
Follow the MONEY.
Rove is still one of the most dishonest political operatives we’ve ever seen, but he’s without a doubt the most overrated one, too.
Which shows how awful the Democrats really were during the first 6 years of W.
Well, ok, if “selectively” is serving to euphemize (but why?)”dishonestly, fraudulently” [certainly ethically fraudulent, if not inarguably fraudulent in a provable, technical legal sense], a la frauds James O’Creep’s and Hannah Wiles’ successfully fraudulent assassination of ACORN. For which, if I’m recalling the details and outcomes of the various investigations (e.g., CA AG) accurately, those two frauds escaped actually doing hard time only by plea bargain/settlement agreement whereby they turned over all the unedited video footage and/or transcripts. Which subsequently proved beyond any reasonable doubt the criminal fraudulence of both their actions and their intent.
One of those cases where a plea bargain/settlement agreement amounted to a gross miscarriage of justice by escape from full accountability, but at least the truth finally came out, though you’d barely know that from the corporate media (who originally chased that fraudulent soccer ball like 4-year-olds when O’Creep, aided and abetted in his crimes by the late, unlamented Breitbart who flogged their fraud for them, kicked it down the field).
All of which, in the immoral precincts of Rightwingnuttia, adds up to a smashing success and standard m.o.: take out the perceived political enemy by any Reality-Distorting/Denying means necessary, including the grossly unethical and illegal.
I’ve seen no evidence that this attempted Planned Parenthood hit is any different. Just as with O’Creep, judging that would of course require access to the unedited videos/transcripts, which so far haven’t been shaken loose. Unless/until that happens, Planned Parenthood’s denials of what the edited videos pretend to “allegedly” show should be treated as conclusive, but of course the rightwingnuts and their pathetic corporate-media enablers do just the opposite. It’s how they roll!