THE ORIGINAL KING OF IRONY STRIKES AGAIN…. Karl Rove cracks me up. Consider what he told Fox News this morning:
“This White House has carried pre-packaged, organized, controlled, scripted events to a new height, and they’re getting away with things that in any previous White House, the media would have eviscerated the press secretary and the White House for it.”
As a substantive matter, Rove was criticizing the president’s forum in Virginia yesterday on health care policy. Amanda Terkel contacted the White House about the logistics of the event, and it turns out, Rove’s criticism is just factually wrong.
But it takes an extraordinary amount of chutzpah for Karl Rove to complain about anyone hosting “pre-packaged, organized, controlled, scripted events.”
Perhaps Rove doesn’t remember the “Bubble Boy” policies used by Bush White House, but these folks quite literally wrote the book on “pre-packaged, organized, controlled, scripted events.” We’re talking about a White House that screened public audiences at public events based on bumper stickers and lapel pins. We’re talking about a White House that would limit ticket distribution to presidential events to local Republican Parties, and then still require “loyalty oaths” to get a ticket. We’re talking about a White House that would literally rehearse events in advance to make sure attendees said the right things to the president.
We’re talking about the gang that put together an official White House “Presidential Advance Manual,” which mandated that only those identified as “extremely supportive of the administration” can be seated between the stage and the camera platform, and that organizers designate “a protest area preferably not in view of the event site or motorcade route.”
And Rove wants us to believe the Obama White House “has carried pre-packaged, organized, controlled, scripted events to a new height”? Are you kidding me?
It’s a reminder that Rove really is the Original King of Irony. After all, this is the same Rove who believes President Obama
* will make terrorist recruiting easier by banning torture;
* is guilty of using hardball political tactics;
* looks at every policy issue “from a political perspective.”
About a year ago, Rove accused the New York Times of having “outed a CIA agent,” which “obviously puts the CIA agent in danger.” Rove added that disclosing the name of a CIA operative represents “a very callous view about our nation’s security and interests.” It was, at the time, one of the most ironic things I’d ever heard.
Apparently, it was just a sign of things to come.
