Karl Rove: Fact-Checkers Are Biased

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Registered: 09-06-2008
Karl Rove: Fact-Checkers Are Biased
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Sun, 09-14-2008 - 3:33pm
Heh.

Karl Rove makes me smile.

As Think Progress notes, after spending the better part of the 2000s pushing every lie, half-truth and exaggeration he thought might help his lame-a$$ duck protege, George Bush, get elected (or keep him out of trouble), Rove is now apparently trying to convince the viewers of FAUX "News" that fact check organizations like factcheck.org and politifact are "biased," (because the fact checkers are now pointing out that his candidate - McCain - is far outstripping the Obama campaign in their use of such sleazy tactics).

Comedy gold. Of course, in his usual, sleazy manner (which posits that if you absolutely CAN'T avoid responsibility for something reprehensible, muddy the waters by claiming that "everyone does it" - regardless of the truth of that statement). So he's now trying to appear evenhanded, saying that "BOTH campaigns" are saying things that "aren't 100% true. However, when he turns right around in the very next breath, and says that "you can't trust the fact-check organizations," anyone who's actually had their brain turned on during the previous minute will realize that he's just contradicted himself: he's just said a) that both candidates are engaging in not-fully-truthful behavior BUT b) you can't trust the fact-checking organizations. Who CAN you trust, then, Karl? You? FAUX "News?" Oy. I need a drink.

What's got Ol' Turd Head Blossom so flustered is the recent spate of reports in both those - and other - fact-checking organizations. Here's PolitiFact on the deeply slimy McCain ad claiming that "Obama's one education accomplishment was "legislation to teach 'comprehensive sex education' to kindergartners":

Rating: PANTS ON FIRE: Obama said that he did not support telling youngsters about explicit information about sex. The bill specifically mentions that instructional material must be age appropriate. It specifically mentions teaching children how to "say no to unwanted sexual advances" and "nonconsensual physical sexual contact." The legislation was not sponsored by Obama and it didn't pass, so calling it one of his "accomplishments" is absurd. We rate this claim Pants on Fire!


Then there's the now-famous correction/objection which factcheck.org was forced to put out, entitled "McCain/Palin distorts our finding":

Those attacks on Palin that we debunked didn't come from Obama.


Pretty much says it all. There's also the lovely little falsehood being pushed by the McCain campaign regarding the whole "lipstick/pig" (non)-controversy. McCain's kneecappers saw an opening, so they sent out campaign surrogate Jane Swift, former Governor of Massachusetts, to do a conference call. In it, she literally said Obama'd called Palin a pig. Here's PolitiFact on the matter:

Rating: PANTS ON FIRE: It is simply impossible to view the complete remarks by Obama and conclude that he’s making a veiled and unsavory reference to Palin. Her name never is used in the preceding sentence. In fact, it’s hard to see how one could interpret Obama’s lipstick-on-a-pig remark as referring directly to McCain, either. We think it’s very clear that Obama was saying McCain’s effort to call himself the “candidate of change” is like putting lipstick on a pig, trying to dress up a bad idea to look better. Agree or disagree with Obama’s point, but his remark wasn’t the smear that McCain’s people have tried to make it.

If anyone’s doing any smearing, it’s the McCain campaign and its outrageous attempt to distort the facts. Did Obama call Palin a pig? No, and saying so is Pants on Fire wrong.


And, lastly, we have factcheck.org again, this time, on the McCain ad entitled "Disrespectful":

The new McCain-Palin ad "Disrespectful" begins like an earlier ad we criticized, with its reference to Barack Obama's celebrity, but then goes down new paths of deception. It takes quotes from news organizations and uses them out of context in an effort to portray Obama and his running mate, Joe Biden, as unfairly attacking Sarah Palin and making sexist remarks.


In light of all of that - and also in light of the fact that virtually all of the same organizations' critiques of anti-Palin and anti-McCain smears and falsehoods come from anonymous Internet yahoos and not from the Obama campaign - which is NOT the case with the anti-Obama smears emerging directly from within the McCain campaign - it's hardly a wonder that ol' Spinmaster Roveâ„¢ would try to muddy the waters by not only claiming "both sides do it," when they clearly don't, in nearly equal frequency or severity, and ALSO that "you just can't trust fact-checking organizations."

But that don't mean it's gonna fly, of course.....LOL


Edited 9/14/2008 5:03 pm ET by corrigenda

Now in darkness, world stops turning
Ashes where the bodies burning
No more war pigs have the power
Hand of God has sturck the hour
Day of judgement, God is calling
On their knees, the war pigs crawling Begging

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iVillage Member
Registered: 04-03-2003
Sun, 09-14-2008 - 4:07pm

Standard

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-03-2008
Sun, 09-14-2008 - 4:10pm
Rove needs to be taken out behind a shed.
iVillage Member
Registered: 09-06-2008
Sun, 09-14-2008 - 5:06pm
"Night soil".....hm.....I have to confess (and this is something I RARELY have to confess) I was unfamiliar with that term. Thanks for the newest addition to my personal dictionary. I like it. And it certainly does describe the totality of Rove's, ah, output rather well, along with "malodorous," which I am familiar with, but which is one of those words which is sadly underused, especially in politics. :o)

Now in darkness, world stops turning
Ashes where the bodies burning
No more war pigs have the power
Hand of God has sturck the hour
Day of judgement, God is calling
On their knees, the war pigs crawling Begging
iVillage Member
Registered: 08-31-2003
Sun, 09-14-2008 - 5:14pm

Funny, here's another take on ALL of what Rove said.

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iVillage Member
Registered: 07-03-2008
Sun, 09-14-2008 - 5:16pm
ROVE HONEST???? You have got to be joking!
iVillage Member
Registered: 09-06-2008
Sun, 09-14-2008 - 5:28pm

Cripes, alicia - I actually LINKED to the video of the WHOLE thing -- as did thinkprogress.

So, while it might make you feel good to bash a "lefty" organization, it's just (like many of the McCain campaign's attack ads this fall) simply not accurate to do so. ThinkProgress assessed the full quote, as did I. I merely arrived at a different conclusion than you obviously did.

Karl Rove is perhaps the prime living example of a completely political animal. An in-depth biographical article I read of him four years ago in the Atlantic magazine has his parents (I think, might have been a childhood friend) saying that AS A TEEN, he had a poster of Nixon in his room, and a sign saying "wake UP, America" over his desk. He has been a political consultant or involved in campaigns literally ever since, and just because he is now nominally a "FOX News analyst," please don't delude yourself into thinking that he is not also a de facto advisor to the McCain campaign. In fact, the only reason he's not taking a bigger role in it is that he is a) now on people's radar screen (even in '04, many people didn't really know who he was or what he did), which means it's harder for him to operate without scrutiny, and b) he has judged (correctly) that the overt involvement of the man Bush refers to as "The Architect" of the disastrous last eight years - and who is forever linked to George W. Bush - would be the kiss of death for the McCain campaign. But make no mistake; Rove is helping out all he can, while staying out of the spotlight in doing so, and providing plausible deniability on the matter.

Rove has also never been "bi-partisan." He wasn't a Democrat in a former incarnation, has never worked for Democratic candidates (literally, never - look it up). And as such - a lifetime spent in EXCLUSIVELY GOP political campaigns, to think that when Rove tries to strike a bi-partisan tone by saying "they both do it," he's being anything less than completely disingenuous (for political reasons, to benefit the GOP) is simply delusional.

You can think what you like, but the truth is that - as ThinkProgress quite deftly pointed out - the "fact-checking" organzations which Rove now claims we mustn't trust have weighed in....and their verdict is that John McCain is FAR more guilty of using deceptive and flat-out false campaign language (i.e. - LIES) than the Obama campaign is. Rove doesn't like that, but he knows he can hardly say simply "it's bunk" without either a) proof of that, or b) attempting to confuse the issue by trying to appear dispassionate and non-partisan.

But the very IDEA of Karl Rove as either dispassionate about GOP politics OR "nonpartisan" is simply ludicrous.

Now in darkness, world stops turning
Ashes where the bodies burning
No more war pigs have the power
Hand of God has sturck the hour
Day of judgement, God is calling
On their knees, the war pigs crawling Begging
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2007
Sun, 09-14-2008 - 5:40pm

LOL!

Sopal

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iVillage Member
Registered: 08-31-2003
Sun, 09-14-2008 - 7:12pm
Did you bother to read the article?
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iVillage Member
Registered: 09-08-2006
Sun, 09-14-2008 - 7:31pm

That whole exchange with Rove was just one of his tactics.

 

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-28-2003
Sun, 09-14-2008 - 7:46pm

>>> Did you bother to read the article?

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