Who’s Questioning Whom’s Patriotism?
One of the favorite tactics of the Angry Left is to hide behind the argument that dissent is the purest form of patriotism, and play the little double game of ‘how dare you question my patriotism’ while, of course, doing just that to their own opponents by the way the issue is framed.
Confusing? Let’s illustrate…
Karl Rove: “At the core, we are dealing with two parties that have fundamentally different views on national security. Republicans have a post-9/11 worldview and many Democrats have a pre-9/11 worldview. That doesn’t make them unpatriotic — not at all. But it does make them wrong — deeply and profoundly and consistently wrong.”
Howard Dean: “Karl Rove only has a White House job and a security clearance because President Bush has refused to keep his promise to fire anyone involved in revealing the identity of an undercover CIA operative. The truth is, Karl Rove breached our national security for partisan gain and that is both unpatriotic and wrong.”
Need I point out again that Karl Rove has not been indicted and likely won’t be, and that Scooter Libby was indicted for lying to a grand jury and not for leaking the identity of a CIA asset?
Speaking of which, the media is about to get a taste of their own medicine:
Attorneys for Vice President Cheney’s former chief of staff told a federal court yesterday that they plan to subpoena several journalists and news organizations to obtain their notes and other information they consider useful in defending their client from perjury charges.
Andrea Mitchell and Tim Russert can’t be too happy about that…
Is this the same Karl Rove who said that Republicans responded to 9/11 with manly aggression and the Democrats responded with “tea and sympathy?” Can you define the difference between being unpatriotic and coddling an enemy which attacked us?
From today’s New York Times: “Rove criticized Democrats for their ‘cut and run’ policy on Iraq, for blocking a renewal of the … Patriot Act, and for challenging the Administration’s use of wiretaps without warrants. But he made no mention of Republican opposition to aspects of both the anti-terrorism law and the surveillance program, which has posed a political problem for the White House.”
Rove creates a straw man which doesn’t exist. Which Democrats exactly are advocating a “cut and run” policy? Reid, Kerry, Schumer, Pelosi, Boxer, Warner, Wesley Clark, John Edwards, Corzine, Hillary Clinton? None of them — who could he be referring to? Micheal Moore?
Also from Rove’s speech: “We need a Commander in Chief who understands the nature of the threat and the gravity of the moment America finds itself in. President Bush and the Republican Party do. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for many Democrats.” Which Democrats? Not Schumer and Clinton: their state was directly attacked. Not the Congress, which passed the resolutions Bush asked for with near unanimity. If he is going to attack “some Democrats,” he has to name them to make his case. Can he name a single prominent Democrat who is unaware that we face a real danger from Islamic terrorists? Of course not.
The fact is that both sides of the aisle are united in wanting to defeat terrorism, and Rove is trying to achieve partisan gain by painting the Democrats as unwilling or unable to fight terrorists. If Ken Mehlman made this speech, it would also be inaccurate, but it would be understandable. Karl Rove works in the White House, and his attacks on mythical Democrats are unseemly and inappropriate.
In my opinion, Rove is making a lot of noise to distract Americans from the real question, which is this: four years after Bush promised to get Bin Ladin dead or alive, he is still around making tapes and threatening us. (Could you imagine what the Republicans would say if a Democratic President was unable for four years to get America’s greatest enemy?). Instead, Bush focussed on Saddam Hussein, who had nothing to do with 9/11 and had no weapons of mass destruction. If, as Rove claims, Republicans are the only ones who understand the danger we face, why haven’t they been successful in capturing the one man who personifies the threats against us?
One more question: if, as Rove claims, Republicans are the only ones to realize “the nature of the threat and the gravity of the moment,” what exactly have they done about it? Are our chemical plants protected? (The Times ran a story recently about how the rail lines which CSX uses goes through downtown Washington. CSX transports a lot of chemicals. The Times sent a reporter to an overpass where one could easily drop an explosive. CSX is a major Republican contributor, and has successfully fought efforts to have their trains re-routed around Washington).
Are our nuclear plants fortified? Do planes have anti-missile equipment? Is luggage being searched or sniffed before it goes in the belly of a plane? Are electrical grids protected against hackers? What are we going to do the next time someone sends anthrax through the mail? Does anyone seriously think that the Department of Homeland Security is up to the task? In my view, the Bush administration is energetic about fighting offensively but seemingly uninterested in fighting defensively.
I don’t claim that all of this can be done in four years — but as far as I can tell, shockingly little of it has been done. While I think the Bush administration can be faulted in many ways for the ways it has fought terrorism overseas, I believe that it has been even more at fault for its inattention to homeland security. If Rove really believes that the Republicans are the only ones who can fight terrorists: fine, you’ve had over four years. What have you done in that time.
peter, nice job on ignoring the juxtaposition of two quotes from the same article, one in which Rove specificially said he was not calling the Democrats unpatriotic, and one in which Dean specifically called Rove unpatriotic…thus the name of my post…
Your last paragraph is straight from the mouth of John Kerry…come on, now, you’re slipping!…
I’m glad you asked that question…
1) Also from today’s New York Times: “Mr. Rove called for civility in politics … and then for 26 minutes offered a lacerating attack on Democrats that other Republicans said was a road map” for 2006. This is one of his tricks — in this instance, he says “I’m not calling Democrats unpatriotic,” and then essentially calls them unpatriotic for the duration of his speech.
2) As for Dean’s quote, it is factually correct. Bush promised to fire anyone involved in disclosing Plame’s identity, and when Rove was identified as one of those who leaked the information, Bush renegged on his promise. Karl Rove did reveal the identity of a covert agent; he did so for partisan gain; doing so is manifestly unpatriotic (Bush I said that revealing a CIA agent’s identity is “the highest form of treason.”) Truth is an absolute defense in libel cases. What Dean said may be unpleasant, but happens to be true.
3) It is unfair to compare Dean with Rove. Dean is a hired gun and the nature of his job is partisan (as is Mehlman’s). Rove is a government official. There are things which are appropriate for the head of a political party which are inappropriate for senior White House staff.
4) If John Kerry said the same thing, so much the better for him. The fact is that Bush should be held accountable for the results since 9/11 — not only because he is President, but because the raison d’etre of his administration is supposedly protecting us from terrorism. What has he done? Well, he put the affable but incompetent Tom Ridge in charge of Homeland Security. The only real test of our homeland security department thus far — Katrina — was a failure. If, as Rove’s speech indicates, Bush is claim that only he can fight terrorism, then it is incumbent upon him to tell us what has been done to date. As far as I can tell — and correct me if I am wrong — the answer is woefully little.
“Your last paragraph is straight from the mouth of John Kerry…come on, now, you’re slipping!…”
No Mark, it’s actually out of the mouth of MoveOn.org. – or maybe CodePink. Peter also makes the unfortunate habit of quoting one source for almost all of his posts – and we don’t need to guess at what paragon of integrity he quotes by osmosis on a daily basis.
Hey Peter, check out how your wonderful paper of record conducts it’s business these days…
http://cathyseipp.journalspace.com/
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles.php?article_id=5179
If I hadn’t read your previous posts over the past few months, I’d think you were a paid flack for the NYT – I mean, woah.
I’m sure if you have good evidence that Rove did reveal the identity of a covert agent for partisan gain, you should be sharing that evidence with Patrick Fitzgerald; I would think you’re sitting on a bombshell. Come now, peter, didn’t Rove come under suspicion for just what you said, and become the subject of a grand jury investigation, and – and what? Where are the charges?
You say Bush should be held accountable for the results since 9/11 – yes, by all means – let’s see, no further attacks on American shores, Osama in hiding and reduced to mouthing the Angry Left talking points, a newly elected government preparing to be seated in Iraq, Saddam on trial, the Taliban deposed…yes, let’s hold him accountable, indeed (and of course, by returning him for a second term, I think the American people voted on that one already)…
1) I’ve never been on the moveon.org site, and I never heard of CodePink. But even if I cut and paste from their site, it’s hardly relevant. Whether something is a talking point or not has nothing to do with whether it is true or not. You can’t dismiss an argument by simply saying “moveon.org says the same thing,” as though it si an a priori truth that anything they (or anyone else) says is necessarily wrong. If I am wrong, tell my why I am wrong — saying that John Kerry or moveon.org says the same thing add nothing.
2) From wikipedia: “Rove and his attorney do not dispute TIME Magazine reporter Matthew Cooper’s contemporaneous email and subsequent grand jury testimony, as related by Cooper himself, that he first learned Plame’s identity from Rove.”
3) Re holding Bush accountable: I think he should be accountable on two fronts (domestic defense and overseas offense), and I am interested to know how you would grade him on defense. But regarding offense: I would say that the fact that Bin Laden is alive and plotting is a sign of failuer. I would expect him to be in hiding. That’s unimportant: he can do a lot of damage from secret locations.
Taliban deposed: absolutely the right thing to do. Done with bipartisan support — any President would have done the same thing. However, I fault the Bush administration for neglecting Afghanistan after we invaded. The central government has limited control of the country, and their opium/heroin production is at an all-time high (no pun intended). So I would not give Bush a high grade here.
New government in Iraq, Saddam on trial: good things, to be sure. However, Al Qaeda now has a strong presence in Iraq, where it had none (or a negligible presence) before we invaded. Since the question here is the war against Al Qaeda, he gets a failing grade here as well.
Re 2006: It was a coin-toss election won by a single state — you could just as plausibly claim that Bush won because of gay marriage, or the Swift Boat antics, or the tax cuts, or because Kerry was an inept opponent. Popular opinion is a double-edged sword: if the election were held today, or if you were to poll American opinion on Bush’s competency or the effectiveness of Homeland Security post-Katrina, you would get a very different result –
Well, we’re pretty well aware of each other’s arguments on this score, so let’s just say we agree to disagree on much of this…
Do I give Bush an A+ post 9/11? – no…but I give him a solid B+ overseas, and probably a C at home…and as for Rove’s intent regarding Valarie Plame, forgive me if I let the lack of an indictment from the special prosecutor speak louder than Wikipedia (he mentioned her name, yes – and per Andrea Mitchell, so did half of Washington – that doesn’t prove that he (a) knew she was covert, and (b) outed her for partisan gain)…
Your failing grade against bin Laden and associates is not fair; from the November 2005 issue of Commentary, here’s Eliot A. Cohen, Professor of Strategic Studies at John Hopkins:
The much underrated removal of al Qaeda’s base in Afghanistan and the killing or arrest of most of its pre-9/11 leadership (and the scattering of the rest) did not remove the fundamental problem, but it did severely weaken an exceptionally dangerous organization.
I wouldn’t count out an indictment against Rove — he apparently escaped indictment by a hair’s breadth in the fall, and Fitzgerald hasn’t closed up shop yet. Moreover, the question is whether he disclosed Plame’s identity, not whether he was indicted for it — given what we know, it seems evident that he did, in fact, disclose her identity.
I felieve that Rove knew from Novak that she was covert — in any event, it would be shocking if he didn’t know (your suggestion is that he disclosed a CIA agent without knowing whether or not she was covert?). As for partisan gain: you’ve been insistent that the timing of the New York Times publication of the NSA story was to sink the Patriot Act — do you seriously think that the disclosure of Plame’s identity within a week (10 days?) of the release of Wilson’s story was for anything other than partisan gain?
As for what Cohen writes: this may well be true, but my suspiciion is that it was like tackling a receiver who is momentarily stunned and then keeps going downfield (forgive the crappy sports metaphor). Given Gitmo, Abu Ghraib, and everything else that’s happened since 9/11, I would be shocked if Al Qaeda did not find enough new recruits to more than replenish whatever resources they lost.
Small correction: I’ve been insistent that the effect of the NY Times NSA leak was to sink the Patriot Act reauthorization: I was gracious enough to give the Times the benefit of the doubt on whether that was the intent…