Testing the Limits of Hypocrisy
This column in the WSJ by Karl Rove may well be the most hypocritical column ever published. Seriously, on a hypocrisy scale of 1 to 10, this is about an 842. The column is entitled "Obama's Straw Men: Why does he routinely ascribe to opponents views they don't espouse?" If that alone isn't enough to make your head explode, here's the first paragraph:
1) Some say X (X being a position no one really holds)
2) I strongly disagree.
Anyone who has paid even the slightest bit of attention to politics over the last eight years knows that straw man argumentation is Karl Rove's specialty. He took the practice to never before seen heights during his years in the White House. So this is like Scott Boras writing a column criticizing other sports agents for driving up player's salaries. Or Donald Trump writing a column criticizing people for naming things after themselves.
I realize that the Wall Street Journal editorial staff are propagandists who have no qualms about intentionally misleading their readers, but this column is so astoundingly hypocritical that it defeats any potential value it has as propaganda. Can't they at least find someone else to make this charge?
President Barack Obama reveres Abraham Lincoln. But among the glaring differences between the two men is that Lincoln offered careful, rigorous, sustained arguments to advance his aims and, when disagreeing with political opponents, rarely relied on the lazy rhetorical device of "straw men." Mr. Obama, on the other hand, routinely ascribes to others views they don't espouse and says opposition to his policies is grounded in views no one really advocates.I'm not going to bother to try to dredge up the endless examples of George W. Bush doing exactly this during his many years in office (or Rove himself using particularly obnoxious straw man rhetoric in virtually every public statement he has ever made) -- Glenn cites quite a few examples here. Suffice it to say, both on the campaign trail and in policy debates, the use of straw man rhetoric was the primary rhetorical tool of George W. Bush. If you look back at his speeches over the last eight years, virtually every one of them contains several stanzas that are framed as follows:
1) Some say X (X being a position no one really holds)
2) I strongly disagree.
Anyone who has paid even the slightest bit of attention to politics over the last eight years knows that straw man argumentation is Karl Rove's specialty. He took the practice to never before seen heights during his years in the White House. So this is like Scott Boras writing a column criticizing other sports agents for driving up player's salaries. Or Donald Trump writing a column criticizing people for naming things after themselves.
I realize that the Wall Street Journal editorial staff are propagandists who have no qualms about intentionally misleading their readers, but this column is so astoundingly hypocritical that it defeats any potential value it has as propaganda. Can't they at least find someone else to make this charge?
posted by A.L. at 9:31 AM
8 Comments:
Not sure why any media outlet would allow such nonsense from soneone like Rove.
It serves no purpose
I know Karl just called the kettle black but it sort of felt like he jumped the shark as well.
Is it just me, or has the conservative movement gone into a complete meltdown since Obama's speech on Tuesday? It's like they didn't see it coming, and that they especially didn't expect those poll numbers. And you know things are bad when the most rational thing you hear from those quarters consist of magical Burkean bells...
Limits?
Hypocrisy?
You do recall who you are talking about here.
As to the speech, I recall kicking a clearing ball in a soccer game that an opposing forward jumped into to block. He was on the ground for about 10 minutes trying to even breathe. I would say that that is going to be the conservative response for the next several months, and, with successes in the plan, years.
pride goeth before a fall and how the mighty have fallen. The self righteous right are choking on it now.
If you follow Rove's "logic" in this column, it becomes clear how easily and deftly Rove, Cheney and Co. twisted the facts for eight years whenever it suited them, up to and including their lies to get us into Iraq.
The first "straw man" Rove cites is this line from Obama's Tuesday nite speech: "I reject the view that...says government has no role in laying the foundation for our common prosperity."
To which Rove has the gall to respond, "Who exactly has that view?"
Who? How about St. Ronald Regan, in his 1st inaugural address, when talking about the economic crisis of that time, he spoke the words that would become the defining mantra of the Republican party: In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.
How many times since 1981 have you heard misty-eyed Republicans reverently invoke that line?
Rove simply has no integrity or credibility. I can't believe that anyone but diehard Limbaugh dittoheads take him seriously.
Somehow knowing, even accepting, that this is "what Rove does", doesn't make its brazenness any less astonishing. To encounter such absence of conscience, such craven hypocrisy and blithe shamelessness, is to look into the howling abyss of the sociopathic psyche. Those who've had the misfortune to know a high functioning sociopath/narcissist will recognise Mr Rove for exactly what he is. In my experience, familiarity doesn't make that recognition any less chilling.
And then, for the proverbial icing - Mr. Rove got a seat at George Stephanopolous' Round Table on This Week yesterday. I'd love that kind of reward for that kind of action.
Its really ashame that "liberals" can't be objective about anything, and simply can't answer a question about Obama without using the word "Bush". Deflection is what people with no credible arguments do; Obama can't make a point without mentioning "the last 8 years", so why would you expect anything better from his blinded followers?
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