Rachel Maddow Takes Apart Rove's WSJ Op-Ed: "Ridiculous Revisionist Argument"

I wanted to put this in Political Videos, but I couldn't find this segment posted to YouTube, but here Larisa Alexandrovna posts about it and embeds the MSNBC link at her blog:

http://www.atlargely.com/atlargely/2009/08/maddow-responds-to-roves-oped.html

August 21, 2009

Maddow responds to Rove's op-ed...

As you already know, Rove wrote and the Wall Street Murdoch published and op-ed in which he - Rove - proclaims himself a victim of a politics and left-leaning media. Facts of course never entered into this equation and the Wall Street Murdoch saw fit to print not only what was entirely false but also bordering on libel against certain individuals.

Earlier today, I reported on one element of Rove's op-ed or what by now should be called his very public mental break-down. This evening, Rachel Maddow took an axe to the rest of it. Enjoy, spread and laugh:

VIDEO AT LINK

RACHEL: "In the opinion pages of today's Wall Street Journal, there is a startling claim by former senior Bush advisor Karl Rove. According to Mr. Rove, he has been wronged by the press for years and it's time for the press to finally own up to its mistakes about him. Specifically, Mr. Rove rails against allegations related to the U.S. attorney scandal, that he manipulated the judicial process for political reasons.

- snip-

You know what? The press actually doesn't need to let up on Mr. Rove at all. Let me explain. In his article today, Mr. Rove emphatically disputes the claim that "the judicial process has been manipulated for political reasons." Here's a story about that:

In October of 2006, Arizona Republican Congressman Rick Renzi was running for re-election. At the time, Mr. Renzi was the subject of a massive investigation by the U.S. attorneys office there for stuff like money-laundering, extortion and insurance fraud. Rumors that he was being investigated were starting to make headlines, which aren't helpful if you're running for re-election. What to do about these unhelpful headlines? Well, according to the House Judiciary Committee that looked into all of this, one of Karl Rove's aides emailed White House council Harriet Miers, to see if the administration could arrange for Mr. Renzi to get some high-level help.

- snip -

Want another story? Let's go to Missouri, where Republican Senator Kit Bond apparently had some issues with the U.S. Attorney there, a man named Todd Graves. What to do about it? Call Karl Rove's office. Todd Graves ended up losing his job as U.S. attorney in a deal that the White House made. They agreed to fire Mr. Graves in order to make Sen. Kit Bond happy enough that he would drop a hold that he'd put on one of Bush's judicial appointments. According to the House Judiciary Committee, it was an explicitly political deal to get rid of this U.S. attorney to keep this one senator happy. And who was at the center of it? Well, a White House email obtained by Congress states that "Karl is fine with the replacement." So, Karl says the judicial process was not being manipulated for political reasons.

What was it being manipulated for then? The weather?

Then there's the case of the fired U.S. Attorney David Iglesias of New Mexico. Again, Karl Rove claims that the House Judiciary investigation proves that Mr. Rove's role in these firings was "minimal and entirely proper." In the case of David Iglesias, he says that nobody has proved that Iglesias was being pressured to prosecute Democrats.

Well, you know what has been proved? It's been proved that in New Mexico at the time, there was a Democrat named Patricia Madrid who was running against a Republican member of Congress. That Republican member of Congress started emailing Karl Rove's office, criticizing U.S. Attorney David Iglesias for not prosecuting that Democrat who was her opponent. After that complaint, Rove's deputy sent Karl Rove himself an email saying Iglesias "shouldn't be shy about about doing his job on Madrid."

- snip -

What he (Rove) was doing around the same time was contacting White House Council Harriet Miers to inform her that David Iglesias was a problem that needed to be dealt with. According to Ms. Miers sworn testimony "(Karl) was very agitated about the U.S. Attorney in New Mexico. It was very clear to me that he felt like he had a serious prolem and he wanted something done about it. He may have said 'can't we get rid of this guy' or something like that."

- snip -

The idea that the press should apologize for making the obvious glaring flood-lit inference here is ridiculous.

- snip -

Karl Rove is now demanding that people lay off of him about the U.S. attorney scandal and the politicization of the Justice Department. .... The Wall Street Journal may feel like this is o.k. to publish on their opinion pages - good for them - but expecting anyone else to get in line with this ridiculous revisionist argument? Yeah, good luck with that.

ugh.