I admit it. I loved, loved, loved it when Karl Rove said last week: “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.”
The Dems have been demanding apologies, but the White House is standing fast. Hang in there, Karl. Calling people wimps is not the same as calling them Nazis.
Rove was addressing New York’s Conservative Party at a political rally, not speaking as a United States senator, and what he said was certainly no worse–and quite a bit less bigoted than Howard Dean’s reference to “white Christians” at an anti-Republican Dem rally. Furthermore Rove was combating efforts to turn the 9/11 memorial at the site of the World Trade Center towards into an anti-patriotic, breast-beating monument denouncing America. At the same rally, New York’s Republican Gov. James Pataki spoke, and here’s what he had to say about the 9/11 memorial (according to the New York Times):
“We’re going to have a Freedom Tower that soars 1,776 feet high, symbolizing our independence….No one is going to turn it into something that is a negative statement about America and our belief in freedom, so long as I am governor of this state.”
Good for him. But the best reason to stand by Karl Rove is that he was right about liberals. Power Line has this report from a friend in show-biz (hat tip to Kathy Shaidle):
“Everything Rove said is absolutely true. I entertained at a 50th anniversary party for a well-known feminist leader about 10 days after 9/11. Much of the liberal elite of the Twin Cities was present. I was wearing a little flag pin that elicited considerable mockery. In a post-performance conversation with 3 prominent DFL activists, they all agreed that 1) America had it coming 2) much of the rest of the world cheered the attacks and that was not a bad thing; 3) the attack was purely a ‘criminal’ matter that required the issuing of indictments, but surely not a war, and finally and most horrifically, a direct quote,’At least we got rid of Barbara Olson.'”
Barbara Olson, a lawyer and political commentator and a passenger on the plane driven into the Pentagon, was an IWF board member and friend of the IWF. Her husband, Theodore Olson, was solicitor general during the first Bush administration. Note the “we” in the rejoicing over the murder of a woman who happened to hold different political views. That went beyond therapy for the 9/11 terrorists. It was empathy with the 9/11 terrorists.