Karl Rove Caught Holding ‘Free Don Siegelman’ Banner
February 26th, 2008Alan Breslauer got a chance to meet Bush’s disgraced former White House political adviser Karl Rove before he spoke at the Gibson Amphitheatre in Los Angeles on Feb. 25. He got this video of the encounter and posted it to YouTube and BradBlog.
Later, Rove was confronted with a question about the Don Siegelman piece on 60 Minutes. Here’s the transcript.
Question: It’s basically a widespread belief that when it comes to politics you play it rough. They have accused you of outing CIA agent Valerie Plame, planning the dismissals of US attorneys on political grounds, collusion with Jack Abramoff and most recently plotting the downfall of Don Siegelman. Do you play rough?
Rove: Ah, you know, in each one of those instances things have proven to be or turned out to be either non-existent or not true. But if there is no evidence for it, Rove is responsible. It’s like the 60 Minutes thing on Don Siegelman…
Question: Did you see it?
Rove: Yeah I did, you know, this woman says that she was a longtime Alabama operative and I asked her to get pictures of Governor Siegelman with - naked pictures of him with his aides - and, ah, that this is a number of requests I’ve made to her.
The fact of the matter is that I never met with this woman. I never made this request of her or anybody else. If she was a political operative she wasn’t involved in any of the campaigns that I was involved in in Alabama. I’ve never met the woman.
And I frankly thought it was really unusual, you know, there was CBS – this woman says she met with me in 2001 – I’m at the White House, where did we meet? You know, she was an opposition researcher, ah, who paid her? When did I start making these requests? I mean, I, I, the woman lied. I don’t think I’ve ever met the woman. I know I’ve never taken a meeting with her.
And yet the CBS – look, I’m a myth I’m not a human being. I may appear to be flesh and blood but I’m a myth.
So, will Rove comply with Congressional subpeonas and tell that to Congress under oath?
Tags: Karl Rove
February 26th, 2008 at 10:54 am
Damn!!!
Karl Rove has a lot of nerve to hold a sign up like that when he is in the middle of the whole political case on Don!!
All he is trying to accomplish is to make it appear that he is not guilty of anything!!! That is par for the course
with him and his friends!
Like I’ve said before, Congress needs to make sure Rove does comply with the subpeonas. The American people need to know what went on with this adminstration. Don and Scrushy should never have been sent to prison.
February 26th, 2008 at 10:57 am
Can a MYTH comply with anything?
Perhaps he could be handcuffed and taken to a bible before Congress and swear to tell THE TRUTH.
I wonder if that would remind him that he is flesh and blood.
But what is truth to someone who thinks themselves a “myth”!
Are we witnessing the beginnings of the end of this darkness?
February 26th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
Rove sounds as if he’s at least partially in leave of his senses. And of course he didn’t bother to research Jill Simpson and discover she was a Republican, not “opposition,” operative.
Maybe Karl cannot conceive of someone doing the ethical and moral thing if it involves revealing the dirt on your own guys.
Machiavelli would have been proud. But not Washington, Jefferson or Madison.
February 26th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
Maybe it’s time to start watching “The Tudors” again on Showtime to see how the Machiavellian monarchy ends…
The beginning of the end? Let’s hope so. But there’s much darkness left to fight, like the “Great Nothingness” in another famous movie about myth…
February 27th, 2008 at 8:57 am
The Tudors — particularly Henry VIII — rank right up there as the top despots of all time in English-speaking countries. Not to be outdone by long-dead British royals, the Bush White House has been competing furiously to move up on that list, haven’t they?
Henry got rid of both unwanted wives and political enemies through elaborately staged show trials that were travesties of justice. Bush and Gonzales have tried to replicate the political enemies part, to be sure. Ask Don Siegelman about that.
Bush famously (or maybe not as famously as should have been) made a statement during his first term “humorously” lamenting that his powers were far more limited than they would be in an authoritarian regime.
Now we know he was very serious about that lament. He really did want near-absolute powers. Wonder if he has a bust of Henry VIII in the Oval Office? He’s got one of Churchill, who’s probably turning over in his grave about it. Churchill, as conservative as he was, still was big on the rule of law and democratic process.
Seems Bush has joined the Tudors in an old, and long-discredited, tradition of perverting the rule of law in favor of personal rule.