Author Topic: How Karl Rove played politics while people drowned  (Read 3758 times)

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Offline DixieBelle

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How Karl Rove played politics while people drowned
« on: June 06, 2008, 10:14:56 PM »
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Hissyspit  (1000+ posts)       Fri Jun-06-08 10:51 AM
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How Karl Rove Played Politics While People Drowned 
 Advertisements [?]Edited on Fri Jun-06-08 10:51 AM by Hissyspit
http://www.salon.com/books/excerpt/2008/06/06/rove_katr...

How Karl Rove Played Politics While People Drowned

Hurricane Katrina posed a huge test to Bush's administration. But instead of bailing out Louisiana, Karl Rove played Blame the Democrats.

Editor's note: This excerpt is adapted and reprinted by permission from "Machiavelli's Shadow: The Rise and Fall of Karl Rove," published this month by Modern Times.


Of all of the stories and subplots, there would be one that, in many ways, symbolized the whole of Katrina, what it revealed about the Bush administration, and how it would affect the lives of so many people. On Friday, Mary Landrieu had been with Bush and Blanco as they toured the 17th Street Canal, where, at last, major work had commenced to repair the damage that had been caused when the levee broke. "Then, on Saturday," Landrieu says, "George Stephanopoulos called and asked to do an interview with me, and I said, 'George, I'm tired of doing interviews. I have to work. And nothing you are airing is accurately showing what's going on down here.' He wanted to go to the Superdome, and I said, 'We still have people stranded on their roofs. If you want to tell the right story, I will help you tell the right story. You get a helicopter and I'll go up and I will show you what is actually happening. It's awful what's happening at the Superdome, but the reason the people can't understand the story is because the entire region is under 20 feet of water. People can't get into the Superdome to help. They can't get out. People are drowning in their homes.'

"So George and I went up in the helicopter and for three hours his jaw was dropping. Then I said, 'George, before we finish I have to show you one positive thing because I can't send you back to Washington to produce a story that shows nothing but devastation and disaster.' So I told the pilot to tack right so I can show George the 17th Street Canal and the work that was going on there. I swear as my name is Mary Landrieu I thought that what I saw with the president was still there -- people working, trucks, sandbags, everything. Then I looked down and saw one little crane. It was like someone took a knife and stabbed me through my heart. I lost it." There, in the cabin of the helicopter, as they flew above the breached canal below them, Landrieu sat devastated.

"I could not believe that the president of the United States, staged by Karl Rove himself, had come down to the city of New Orleans and basically put up a stage prop. It was like you had gone to a studio in California and filmed a movie. They put the props up and the minute we were gone they took them down. All the dump trucks were gone. All the Coast Guard people were gone. It was an empty spot with one little crane. It was the saddest thing I have ever seen in my life. At that moment I knew what was going on and I've been a changed woman ever since. It truly changed my life."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=3396001&mesg_id=3396001

Oh my. It's a small campfire but worth reading. They are still so pissed about Fiztmas!  :lmao:
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No, my friends, there’s only one really progressive idea. And that is the idea of legally limiting the power of the government. That one genuinely liberal, genuinely progressive idea — the Why in 1776, the How in 1787 — is what needs to be conserved. We need to conserve that fundamentally liberal idea. That is why we are conservatives. --Bill Whittle

Offline Bondai

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Re: How Karl Rove played politics while people drowned
« Reply #1 on: June 06, 2008, 11:17:58 PM »
Yep, It was everybodies fault but the actual people in charge, namely DEMOCRATS. :bs:


"It's mercy, compassion, and forgiveness I lack; not rationality".

Offline Rebel

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Re: How Karl Rove played politics while people drowned
« Reply #2 on: June 06, 2008, 11:27:38 PM »
Blanco and Nagin must have been in the Bahamas then.  :whatever:

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Offline Carl

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Re: How Karl Rove played politics while people drowned
« Reply #3 on: June 07, 2008, 06:34:31 AM »
 :whatever:

This whole little story sounds like a bunch of BS to me.

Offline DixieBelle

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Re: How Karl Rove played politics while people drowned
« Reply #4 on: June 07, 2008, 08:05:30 AM »
Oh do go and read the OP in the DUmmie link.  :whatever:

http://www.salon.com/books/excerpt/2008/06/06/rove_katrina/

Quote
"Rove understood what a nightmare this was for the president," Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana says, "so he went into high gear on the spin thing they're so good at in the White House. Rove had David Vitter, the Republican senator from Louisiana. I was at a press conference and David Vitter walked up to the mike and said, 'I just got off the phone with Karl Rove.' I looked at the governor and she looked at me, like, 'Why is David Vitter on the phone with Karl Rove?' I mean, he could have been talking to generals, the president himself, but Rove is just a political hatchet man."

Despite his expertise being politics, the administration had made Rove a central player in the handling of the disaster. "A light switch in the White House didn't get turned on without going through Rove," says Adam Sharp, an aide to Landrieu. "It was clear that Rove was the point person for the White House on this disaster."

That fact was proven precisely by what Vitter had done and said at the press conference. "As soon as Vitter said he had just gotten off the phone with Rove and other Republican officials," Landrieu says, "he started in on the first talking point to come out of the ordeal. I said to myself, 'Oh my God, I can't believe the White House has already given David Vitter talking points to talk about this.' We weren't going to blame anyone. We weren't going to blame the president. I mean, is there a Republican talking point for how to get people water? But that was Karl Rove."

Instead of supplying relief to the city, Rove had devised a scheme whereby he could blame the failure of government to take action on someone besides Bush. "They looked around," Landrieu says, "and they found a Democratic governor and an African American Democratic mayor who had never held office before in his life before he was mayor of New Orleans -- someone they knew they could manipulate. Ray Nagin had never held public office and here he was the mayor of New Orleans and it was going underwater."

In short, Rove was going to blame Blanco for the failure of the response in Louisiana, and to do that he was going to use Nagin.

Here was Rove's strategy: Praise Haley Barbour, the Republican governor of Mississippi; praise Michael Brown and FEMA; blame Blanco, the Democrat. It was not a stretch for Nagin. He and Blanco so disliked each other that in Blanco's last race Nagin had endorsed her opponent.


Is there anything they won't contort or try to pin on Rove???

Rove speaks (2007) on the disaster repsonse and future response -
[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcNvkSnDpeo[/youtube]
« Last Edit: June 07, 2008, 08:14:48 AM by DixieBelle »
I can see November 2 from my house!!!

Spread my work ethic, not my wealth.

Forget change, bring back common sense.
-------------------------------------------------

No, my friends, there’s only one really progressive idea. And that is the idea of legally limiting the power of the government. That one genuinely liberal, genuinely progressive idea — the Why in 1776, the How in 1787 — is what needs to be conserved. We need to conserve that fundamentally liberal idea. That is why we are conservatives. --Bill Whittle

Offline DixieBelle

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Re: How Karl Rove played politics while people drowned
« Reply #5 on: June 07, 2008, 08:22:45 AM »
The heliocopter ride with Landrieu and Stephanapoulos. At the 1:50 mark, she says she might have to "punch the president".

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DA_pDl5wOi0[/youtube]
I can see November 2 from my house!!!

Spread my work ethic, not my wealth.

Forget change, bring back common sense.
-------------------------------------------------

No, my friends, there’s only one really progressive idea. And that is the idea of legally limiting the power of the government. That one genuinely liberal, genuinely progressive idea — the Why in 1776, the How in 1787 — is what needs to be conserved. We need to conserve that fundamentally liberal idea. That is why we are conservatives. --Bill Whittle

Offline Red October

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Re: How Karl Rove played politics while people drowned
« Reply #6 on: June 07, 2008, 08:43:11 AM »
President Obama would fixed everything in a fraction of a second.  He would merely spread his hands before him and the water would part.  He would reach into a basket and produce enough bread and fish to feed all of New Orleans, averting the wide-spread murder and cannabalism that Bush allowed to happen.  He would have spoken The Word, and not only would mountains have moved, but state Democrats would have pulled their heads out of their asses and locked on evacs for all those stranded, waterlogged looters.  And Obama's political advisor, like his preacher and his wife, would never play politics (or race) and the expense of the people.  Mr. Obama is a profound, mystical man endowed with powers white people could not begin to understand.  This country needs Obama now more than ever to avert the wars, pestilence, tidal waves and asteroids that Bush and McCain would cause.
 

Offline Vagabond

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Re: How Karl Rove played politics while people drowned
« Reply #7 on: June 07, 2008, 09:47:44 AM »
I don't blame the Katrina response on the White House, especially considering the failures of the state and local governments in Lousiana and New Orleans.

But the position at the head of FEMA could have been handled buy someone who was a logistics management expert as opposed to someone who was popular with the horsey racing crowd.
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Offline Bondai

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Re: How Karl Rove played politics while people drowned
« Reply #8 on: June 07, 2008, 01:19:24 PM »
I don't blame the Katrina response on the White House, especially considering the failures of the state and local governments in Lousiana and New Orleans.

But the position at the head of FEMA could have been handled buy someone who was a logistics management expert as opposed to someone who was popular with the horsey racing crowd.

Agreed...


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Offline TheSarge

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Re: How Karl Rove played politics while people drowned
« Reply #9 on: June 07, 2008, 03:08:44 PM »
The Democrats remind me of some E-5's I've dealt with in the Military...they want all the credit but NONE of the responsibility.
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Offline MrsSmith

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Re: How Karl Rove played politics while people drowned
« Reply #10 on: June 07, 2008, 08:12:19 PM »
As I've mentioned before, part of the problem with the FEMA response to Katrina was that it was too fast.  A former co-worker and her husband are FEMA employees.  Her husband and his entire group was in NOLA before the flooding, and lost all their gear and supplies to the water.  They had a couple military trucks, and managed to make it through the rising water and onto an overpass with nothing but their backpacks...and then were themselves waiting for rescue. 

If FEMA had been slower, they wouldn't have been caught by the flooding.

If the locals had been at all intelligent, they wouldn't have placed their rescuers in a below-sea-level area.  Of course, these are the same locals that let their school buses flood instead of wasting them on saving their residents.
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Offline formerlurker

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Re: How Karl Rove played politics while people drowned
« Reply #11 on: June 07, 2008, 08:38:18 PM »
Uh I am so confused.   

If Karl Rove created the hurricane with Dick Cheney and their hurricane machine, then why on earth would they assist in the clean up?

Did I miss a memo? 

Offline Rebel

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Re: How Karl Rove played politics while people drowned
« Reply #12 on: June 07, 2008, 11:40:34 PM »
The Democrats remind me of some E-5's I've dealt with in the Military...they want all the credit but NONE of the responsibility.

....or some E-4s I've dealt with.  :uhsure:
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There's a reason why patriotism is considered a conservative value. Watch a Tea Party rally and you'll see people proudly raising the American flag and showing pride in U.S. heroes such as Thomas Jefferson. Watch an OWS rally and you'll see people burning the American flag while showing pride in communist heroes such as Che Guevera. --Bob, from some news site

Offline Vagabond

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Re: How Karl Rove played politics while people drowned
« Reply #13 on: June 08, 2008, 11:31:00 AM »
The Democrats remind me of some E-5's I've dealt with in the Military...they want all the credit but NONE of the responsibility.

....or some E-4s I've dealt with.  :uhsure:
E-4s don't matter.  The units I was in, an E-4 could have single-handedly forced the surrender of an entrenched enemy batallion and he might get an AAM.  That is if it didn't get downgraded to an Article 15.  Meanwhile the "supervising" E-6 would get an ARCOM.
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Offline Airwolf

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Re: How Karl Rove played politics while people drowned
« Reply #14 on: June 08, 2008, 01:07:21 PM »
The Democrats remind me of some E-5's I've dealt with in the Military...they want all the credit but NONE of the responsibility.

....or some E-4s I've dealt with.  :uhsure:
E-4s don't matter.  The units I was in, an E-4 could have single-handedly forced the surrender of an entrenched enemy batallion and he might get an AAM.  That is if it didn't get downgraded to an Article 15.  Meanwhile the "supervising" E-6 would get an ARCOM.

Sounds like my old unit at Ft Drum.
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