Karl Rove, the strategist behind President George W. Bush's ascendancy to the White House, will join Rupert Murdoch's Fox News Channel as a contributor. This is reaching new lows even for Fox News.
Rove was chief strategist for Bush's 2000 presidential campaign and joined him in the White House in several capacities. He resigned his White House position as Deputy Chief of Staff in August 2007 under allegations of breaking several federal laws.
Rove has been contributing opinion pieces to The Wall Street Journal, which also belongs to Murdoch's NewsCorp, and will debut on the television network with live coverage on Super Tuesday, the biggest day of the presidential primary election season. This in itself is reason to shun Wall Street Journal.
We can expect Karl Rove to spew extreme bias against anything that is not republican or extreme right wing conservative politics. Another proof that ‘fair and balanced’ reporting does not exist on the Fox Network.
Some history of this low-life character.
In 1969, the Selective Service System held its first lottery drawing. Those born on December 25, like Rove, received number 84. That number placed him in the middle of those (with numbers 1 [first priority] through 195) who would eventually be drafted. On February 17, 1970, Rove was reclassified as 2-S, a deferment from the draft because of his enrollment at the University of Utah in the fall of 1969. He maintained this deferment until December 14, 1971, despite being only a part-time student in the autumn and spring quarters of 1971 (registered for between six and 12 credit hours) and dropping out of the university in June 1971 after he no longer needed the cover of student to dodge the draft. Rove was a student at the University of Maryland, College Park in the fall of 1971; as such, he would have been eligible for 2-S status, but registrar's records show that he withdrew from classes during the first half of the semester. In December 1971 he was reclassified as 1-A. On April 27, 1972, he was reclassified as 1-H, or "not currently subject to processing for induction". The draft ended on June 30, 1973.
This illustrates the trickery he would soon put to good use to advance his career in politics.
In the fall of 1970, Rove used a false identity to enter the campaign office of Democrat Alan J. Dixon, who was running for Treasurer of Illinois. He stole 1,000 sheets of paper with campaign letterhead, printed fake campaign rally fliers promising "free beer, free food, girls and a good time for nothing", and distributed them at rock concerts and homeless shelters, with the effect of disrupting Dixon's rally. (Dixon eventually won the election). Rove's role would not become publicly known until August 1973. Rove told the Dallas Morning News in 1999, "It was a youthful prank at the age of 19 and I regret it”.
But, he learned from it and ‘improved’ his ability to stay under the radar while reaching new lows. This shows this man’s moral character.
Rove traveled extensively, participating as an instructor at weekend seminars for campus conservatives across the country. He was an active participant in Richard Nixon's 1972 Presidential campaign. As a protégé of Donald Segretti (later convicted as a Watergate conspirator), Rove painted the Nixon opponent George McGovern as a "left-wing peacenik", in spite of McGovern's World War II stint piloting a B-24.
This shows the low depth’s to which Rove will stoop to discredit an opponent.
Under George W. Bush
Rove has played a significant role in shaping policy at the White House. One oft-cited example is that terror warnings were regularly made at times when John Kerry's ratings rose during the 2004 presidential election. Another is the 2006 announcement that planned terrorist attacks had been thwarted, which was made soon after the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program was discovered.
Rove held stock interests in companies that he was directly involved in setting policy for.
At a fund-raiser in New York City for the Conservative Party of New York State in June 2005, Rove said, "Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 in the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers." Democrats demanded Rove's resignation or an apology, and pointed out that every Democrat in the Senate voted for military force against Al-Qaeda in retaliation for the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States; however they got neither.
Families Of September 11, an organization founded in October 2001 by families of some of those who died in the terrorist attack, requested Rove "stop trying to reap political gain in the tragic misfortune of others". In contrast, the Bush administration characterized Rove's comments as "very accurate" and stated that the calls for an apology were "somewhat puzzling", since he was "simply pointing out the different philosophies when it comes to winning the War on Terrorism.
During the campaign, critics alleged that Rove had professional ties to the producers of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth television ads that criticized Kerry's Vietnam-era military service and public testimony against American soldiers, although no evidence of Rove's direct involvement was ever produced.
A few months after the election, Representative Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) publicly alleged that Rove engineered the Killian documents controversy during the 2004 campaign, by planting fake anti-Bush documents with CBS News to deflect attention from Bush's service record during the Vietnam War. Other than Rove's supposed motive, however, no evidence supporting this speculation has ever been publicized. Rove himself has denied any involvement.
This illustrates why Bush and Rove got along so well, they both are slippery snakes who callously lie about the character of anyone who opposes their points of view. And Fox News hired this man, with this kind of history as a news commentator? Incredible!
On August 29, 2003, retired ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV claimed that Rove leaked the identity of Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, as a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) employee, in retaliation for Wilson's op-ed in The New York Times in which he criticized the Bush administration's citation of the yellowcake documents among the justifications for the War in Iraq enumerated in Bush's 2003 State of the Union Address.
The leak of Valerie Plame’s identity, led to Lewis Scooter Libby to be tried and convicted for perjury and obstruction of justice. Charges should have been brought against Karl Rove for the leak instead of Scooter Libby.
There has been enough substantial allegations brought against Karl Rove to indicate that he is as underhanded and sneaky as the allegations say he is. The fact that he has not been prosecuted for any of these charges is proof of his protection by highly placed people.
The list of his underhanded and dirty politics is a long lone because he has been associated with shady deals for all of his political career.
During the past 30+ years you can look at any campaign this man was involved with and find every lying, cheating, smearing, and general dirty politics at play, all under Karl Rove’s direction or direct involvement. He IS the smear campaign tactics that voters despise about political campaigning.
This says a lot about the character of every politician that has ever hired him and it says a lot about the news media that gives him voice him today.
Giving a forum in the media to a law breaker and hired character assassin such as Karl Rove is loathsome and bespeaks of Murdoch’s disdain for the media and his readership. Fox News and Rupert Murdoch should be ashamed to even associate with this low-life. But then again, this is business as usual for Fox News who allows such racially ignorant, arrogantly objectionable people as Bill O’Reilly to spout his opinionated drivel.
Hiring Karl Rove only shows that Rupert Murdoch will resort to any unconscionable and sensational means necessary to sell news. He doesn’t give a rats ass about the principle of truth, decency, morals or ethics of journalism. His association with Karl Rove proves this beyond all doubt.
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