I’m unaware that anyone here, including myself, has even implied that “Rove probably did this.” It does seem quite plausible that Rove or one of his acolytes did it, but even if the forgery and its exposure were unrelated to any White House action, the way that the true story (Bush certainly was a shirker, forgery or not) got pre-empted by the irrelevant (Rather wasn’t running for President) is typical of Rove-directed campaigns, and FoxNews-domination of American “news.”
I tried to make my OP and even the thread title clear. I’m not pitting Rove, but Pitting those who don’t know (or pretend not to know) that Karl Rove is a disgusting slimeball.
How about you, Bricker? Is Rove a disgusting slimeball or not? Can you answer a yes-no question or not?
In these political threads, right-wingers constantly whine that they’re treated with disrespect. Debates on economic policy have their place, but it’s difficult to take anyone seriously when they don’t know (or pretend not to know) answers to simple questions like
Was Obama born in Hawaii?
Is Karl Rove a disgusting slimeball?
Was there credible evidence that Iraq had WMD’s?
To take you seriously on political matters when you can’t answer such simple questions would be like listening to you prattle about trigonometry when you can’t do simple arithmetic.
The first question is a matter of established fact. The third question hinges on the somewhat subjective term “credible”. The second question is entirely subjective.
You say you don’t want to make this thread about Karl Rove, but what percent of your OP was directly related to Rove and Shodan’s refusal to accept the claim that Rove was behind the forgeries? I didn’t measure it, but looks like at least 90%.
And although you don’t say Rove was the likely culprit, you did say that the likely culprit was a Bush supporter, which doesn’t really stand up to the facts regarding the actual source of the documents. Despite your protestations, you do seem to want people to make the link between the forged documents and whether or not Rove is a “disgusting slimeball”. Else, why even bring it up?
Why didn’t you just start an OP listing all the things you have as proof of your allegation? Not everyone is as fully in formed of all the proven Rove acts that mark him thusly as you are.
I plead guilty to allowing anger about multiple, more-or-less unrelated, things to intrude into my OP.
Before the Rather incident, I already believed Karl Rove was a disgusting slimeball, and thought that other informed Americans believed this as well. Since I thought both of those things before the Rather incident, the question of Rove’s sliminess doesn’t depend on any allegation about the Rather forgery. See how simple simple logic is?
I presented a short list of allegations about Rove, but it wasn’t, and isn’t, my intent to attempt to “prove” Rove is slime. I think informed people know that already.
Would you condescend to answer a yes/no question, Mr. Mace? Do you think Karl Rove is a disgusting slimeball?
I don’t care for Rove. I don’t care for his politics and don’t care for many of the tactics he has used. He has certainly done some things I would consider disgusting and slimy. But I would prefer not to call anyone whom I did not know personally a “disgusting slimeball”, because I don’t think I know enough about that person. Well, maybe I’d call Ann Coulter that, and maybe I have already done so on this MB, but I make an exception for her.
Why? What was so smart about outing Valerie Plame? I’ve never seen what they really thought they would even accomplish with that. Seemed like pure vindictiveness without much cunning to me.
I don’t think Rove was particularly brilliant. He simply was without conscience and able to be more outrageous than others with less concern about getting caught.
Missed the edit window: He also had the benefit of affiliating with a party whose constituency would spend a lot of time and effort defending the honor of someone like Karl Rove, even going on a decade after the fact. He would not do well without being supported by like-minded individuals.
Thank you. I apologize for implying that you might admire Rove, especially as I think you’re no fan of the modern Republican Party.
But it is frustrating to debate others who refuse to concede the obvious. If Shodan could say “Of course Rove is a disgusting slimeball, but I don’t think he did the Rather forgery” this whole Pit thread would never have existed.
But Shodan won’t condescend to answer the question and, AFAIK, Rove is one of Shodan’s personal heroes. (If this insults your intelligence, Shodan, all I can say is that in these threads you habitually insult your own intelligence far beyond anything I can do to add or detract.)
OK. I generally don’t engage with Shodan. I have, on occasion, done so and found it to be fruitless. There are people like that on all sides of the political spectrum here, and while I think it’s worthwhile calling them out and correcting false information (if only for people reading and not participating), I don’t see any point in trying to get them to admit they are wrong. Ain’t gonna happen.
You’ve read this whole thread and didn’t see a single instance of anyone implying Rove probably did the forgeries?
Really?
Sure I can.
No.
Do not read into that answer any admiration for all of Rove’s tactics. But “disgusting slimeball,” while not a term of rigorous definition, is still a harsh conclusion, made harder to accept from you because I’m convinced that your analysis rests equally on his misdeeds and the side he supported by them. That is: if he had been working to support the left, his use of lies would probably not register nearly so high on your outrage meter.
Given you’re apparently able to fool yourself into believing that “I still think it’s likely that Karl Rove, or one of his fans, was responsible for the forged memo,” is implying that you think it’s likely he did it, I have no trouble imagining you’re able to fool yourself into imagining that you judge slimeball-ness evenhandledly.
Wow. You can’t seriously be offering up the argument that statement #1, a matter of fact, is of the same caliber as statement #2, a matter of judgement and opinion, can you?
"Probable and “likely” are both fuzzy terms, but the former implies “probability > 50%” to me, which the latter does not. Moreover, the person who changed this part of the meaning also reduced “Rove or one of his fans” to “Rove.”
Who is being dishonest here?
I was saddened to read about Dick Morris working in the Clinton White House, though AFAICT his level of slime was far below Rove’s. I do admit to a sense of satisfaction and relief to learn that Morris is now a right-wing hack.
But what in tarnation does my objectivity, or lack thereof, have to do with the question of Rove’s sliminess?
BTW, I am curious whether the allegations against Rove, if true, would make him a felon and if not, why not. But if his behavior is somehow “legal” I’m still old-fashioned enough to consider it very wrong.
What the three statements have in common is:
[ul][li] They are agreed to be true by centrists who follow news objectively.[/li][li] They would be acknowledged as true by any right-winger whose opinions are honest and intelligent, rather than just prattle and lies.[/li][li] They are denied by “serious” right-wingers. For example, we still have major GOP figures doubting Obama’s citizenship; and Rove is treated by the right-wing as an an intellectual luminary![/li][/ul]
Even now, Shodan hasn’t clarified whether Rove is his hero or not.
You’ve conceded only that you “don’t admire all of Rove’s tactics” and cite your contempt for septimus as the reason you’re unwilling to take a stronger stand.
The underlying theme of this thread is that right-wingers here are “full of hot air.” Your comments serve to confirm that.
I’m not putting a dog into this fight vis-à-vis Karl Rove’s slimeballishness, but — seriously? “Probable” is the one-word definition of “likely”; they are synonymous. Seriously, for the definition of likely my dictionary reads “such as well might happen or be true; probable”. There’s no way around it: “it is likely that Karl Rove or one of his fans did this” relays connotation identical to “it is probable that Karl Rove or one of his fans did this”.
Now, it’s true that “Karl Rove” is not the same entity as “Karl Rove or one of his fans”. But it’s a stretch to call that interpretation dishonest.
(FWIW, if all someone can offer for evidence of an accusation is “it fits his MO”, I’m not sure why that’s supposed to be convincing. Stealing money and buying drugs fits my brother in law’s MO, but that doesn’t mean every time someone has trouble finding her pills we should light up some torches and march to his trailer. This is “boogeyman!” level stuff.)
But its perfectly legal! Why, I can show you citations and court cases in abundance that declare that while liberal hypocrisy is the number two threat to the Republic, second only to Cognitive Dissonance, and worthy of being loudly decried at every opportunity, it remains entirely legal, and I win the thread.
Is it worth nothing that something like two hours before you posted this I called Septimus out on his defense? You probably have the better side of this specific argument; don’t give people ammunition by living up to their opinions of you as obsessed with liberal hypocrisy (and seeing it everywhere). Sheesh.
