Karl's Web

by Eric Martin

Paul Krugman comments on a recent Karl Rove op-ed that addressed the Iraq war and related political implications:

Karl Rove now tells us that his “biggest mistake” was not fighting back against the perception that the Bush administration deliberately misled us into the Iraq war. His main evidence that nothing like that happened is the fact that a 2005 commission found no wrongdoing.

Here is what Rove actually wrote:

Several bipartisan commissions would later catalogue the serious errors in the intelligence on which Mr. Bush and Democrats relied. But these commissions, particularly the Silberman-Robb report of March 31, 2005, found that the "Bush lied" charge was false.

Not that it should surprise anyone, but Rove is, er, lying about not lying.  That is, the Silberman-Robb commission was specifically NOT tasked with investigating whether or not the Bush administration distorted intelligence.  So it's kind of rich to cite that commission's report as exonerating evidence.

From the report's mission statement (pdf):

Finally, we emphasize two points about the scope of this Commission’s charter, particularly with respect to the Iraq question. First, we were not asked to determine whether Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. That was the mandate of the Iraq Survey Group; our mission is to investigate the reasons why the Intelligence Community’s pre-war assessments were so different from what the Iraq Survey Group found after the war. Second, we were not authorized to investigate how policymakers used the intelligence assessments they received from the Intelligence Community. Accordingly, while we interviewed a host of current and former policymakers during the course of our investigation, the purpose of those interviews was to learn about how the Intelligence Community reached and communicated its judgments about Iraq’s weapons programs—not to review how policymakers subsequently used that information. [emphasis added]

Vintage Rove.

Comments

[Tony P.]

Eric, you don't really expect any comments on this one, do you?

Let's have some baby pictures! Those would at least be more controversial (not to mention more adorable) than the breathtaking revelation that Karl Rove is a lying sack of doo-doo.

--TP

[Model 62]

That's true, Tony P. But a few of the regulars have taken issue -- recently -- with the, more or less accepted (in certain circles), idea that Bush Lied. It's not unreasonable to expect that this thread might develop into a rehashing of that debate. Assuming folks are willing.

[alphie]

I don't think Rove's output is meant for human consumption.

[R. Johnston]

From Wikipedia:

"In the past, tuberculosis has been called consumption, because it seemed to consume people from within, with a bloody cough, fever, pallor, and long relentless wasting"

It sounds like Rove's output is the cause of human consumption.

[Mike Schilling]

Karl Rove writes that his biggest mistake was being insufficiently partisan. Is anyone surprised?

[russell]

Turd blossom.

That is all there is to say, and all one needs to know.

[jonnybutter]

Turd blossom.

Yes indeed. Even Bush had contempt for Rove. Well, *especially* Bush did.