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editor@wesupportthevets.com
Today from the Editor's desk
Tuesday, October 02, 2007 When we heard this announcement, all we could think of is, THIS is the guy that is the best man for the job?? Lets go back to September last year and re-read the article we did on Karl then. Karl Rove article Sept 6,2004 wesupportthevets.com Editorial by William Gast We decided to do an article on Karl Rove. No
shortage of research material on this individual. He has quite a
background. He is the kind of individual people say that “Once you
“encounter Karl Rove, you never forget the name.” ( ed note: I sat
in front of my keyboard a laughed out loud at the remark I read by
Robert Bryce of the Karl is George W. Bush’s Senior Advisor and political strategist. With a title like that, you have to be impressed by sheer fact that this is the guy that has the ear of the U.S. President. His “right -hand Man” so-to-speak. Think about that title for a minute. “Senior Advisor” Literal interpretation = his word prevails over others advising the POUS. Then, “Chief Political Strategist”. That title will come into sharper focus by the time you finish this article. Karl Rove (Born December 25,1950 in Rove has attended a multitude of colleges but never graduated or has a degree from any. While attending the University of Utah, Rove, a “young Republican” teamed up with a young Lee Atwater to seize control of the College Republicans Political Club. Once in the seat of power, Rove dropped out of this college (the second of many) to take the position of executive director of the College Republican National committee. Rove was a protégé of Donald Segretti , convicted Watergate conspirator. Considering all the events that “Turd Blossom” (Rove’s nickname by GWB senior) has been associated with in the past few years, you have to wonder how that event (Watergate) occurred without Rove on the team someplace. In 1970, he sneaked into the campaign office of
Illinois Democrat Alan Dixon and stole some letterhead. He printed
fliers on the letterhead promising “free beer, free food, girls and a
good time for nothing” and distributed the fliers at rock concerts and
homeless shelters. One of the few times he admitted to any of his
tactics, he commented “ I was nineteen and I got involved in a political
prank” (1) Rove has taught at the University of Texas, San Marcos
according to his bio. That was interesting. I always thought that you
had to have at least a degree and accredited teaching credentials to
teach college level.(?) Maybe not in Texas. In 1981, Rove founded a
direct mail consulting firm, Karl Rove & Co., based in Rove first public affiliation with George W. Bush came in 1993 when he began advising his gubernatorial campaign. Karl Rove has made the RNC a real cash cow since that time. NYT claims that in 1993 John Ashcroft’s campaign paid Rove over $300, to aid his Senate race. In 1999, the George w. Bush campaign paid him $2.5 million between July and December. Reading later accounts doing this research we see that Karl is a wealthy man. What does he do with the megabucks he gets for his tactics and “advising”? Evidently he invests a lot. A guy with these connections should know where to place a few sheckles and make a decent profit-right? No disgrace in making money. You just need to be careful of where you put it. Karl wasn’t too careful with some of the bucks. In march 2001 Rove met with executives from Intel, successfully advocating a merger between a Dutch company and an Intel company supplier. Rove owned over $100,000 in Intel Co. stock at the time. In June 2001 Rove met with two pharmaceutical industry lobbyists. At the time Rove held almost $250,000 in drug industry stocks. Amazingly, on June 30, 2001, Rove divested his stocks in 23 companies, which included more than $100,000 in each Enron, Boeing, General Electric and Pfizer. The same day, the white House admitted that Rove was involved in administration energy policy meetings, while at the same time holding stock in energy companies including Enron. His name never appeared on any news list in the Enron scandal. As one reporter said of Rove “ You write a negative comment, let alone a negative article about Rove and you will never again see the inside of the White House press room” . Rove is credited with polishing young GWB for his 2000 presidential election. In that election, GWB faced a war hero named John McCain, whose sacrifices in a Vietnam prison camp made Bush’s guard time look like a cub scout drop-out. This was especially hard to combat when GWB was unable to explain missing attendance at drills and a much needed participation in a emergency alert conducted by the Texas National guard. At this point, Rove conducted a “whisper” campaign to spread sleaze, pushing ridiculous allegations, such that McCain was a stoolie while imprisoned in Vietnam. Rove was reputedly the brains behind a multitude of spam E-Mails indicating that McCain had fathered an illegitimate black daughter., a lie that was “proven” by actual pictures of McCain with his black daughter, whom he actually adopted. GWB and KR trampled McCain and moved on to the general election. The list of Rove antics goes on forever. Not his most recent but typical is the report that it was Karl that used Robert Novak to leak that former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA. This was retaliation by Rove for Wilson’s breach of loyalty by telling the truth to the American Public. Wilson had been sent to Niger in 2002 to investigate whether Iraq was trying to buy uranium there. He documented that, factually, they weren’t. Wilson made several documented reports to the white House if this fact which was promptly ignored. Bush cited the uranium story in his 2003 State of the Union address; Cheney cited it almost every day in defense of the reason to invade Iraq. When the war was “won and over”, no WMD had been found. Asked about the uranium, Wilson pointed out to the media that there was no evidence and that he had told the White House and documented it. At that moment, Wilson came into the crosshairs of Rove’s focus. In July 2003 reporter Robert Novak reported that Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA, blowing her cover and endangering her life as she had worked as a covert operative for the Agency. (any other person but Novak with his arch-conservative status with the WH would have been tackled and pinned by the Justice Department in a nanosecond). Wilson identified Rove as the instigator. The cruel dark side of Rove came out in the 107th congressional fight for veteran’s benefits. In the 107th Session of Congress, the bill to return retired pay to disabled veterans, HR303 was cosponsored by Democrats and Republicans alike. It was a bill that had been too long in the process of returning retired pay to America’s disabled veterans drawing medical from the V.A. GWB had made it known that if the bill came to his desk, he would veto it. (The POUS has never given a valid reason for his dislike of this resolution but has been a avid opponent of its passage. ) Enter Karl Rove. Speaker of the house Dennis Hastert and Rove are like tennis doubles champs. Both are known for their in-your-face aggressive political tactics. The bill that would have given America’s disabled veterans their due was never introduced to the floor courtesy Dennis Hastert, therein not requiring the embarrassment of a veto by GWB. The 108th session of Congress started with the introduction of HR303 (again) by its faithful champion of the cause, Congressman Michael Bilirakis (RFla.9) introducing the bill. To see the events and read the process up to the introduction of the discharge petition by Jim Marshall, see http://www.vets-r-us.com This time veterans were better organized and had conducted a nationwide campaign to bring the attention of HR303 to the media and public. It was working, congressmen returning to their districts during Fourth of July returned to Washington reporting “increased concern and support to pass HR303” The discharge petition was gaining momentum and had all but 18 signatures required. Enter Karl Rove. The author of the bill Michael Bilirakis suddenly to the amazement of all steps forward and leads a blockade against any more Republican signatures on the discharge petition. Two Republican congressmen had already signed and it was getting close to where this discharge petition was going to close in on GWB and he would have to veto it before the public who, in turn would want to know why, a guy that loved having his photo taken with the troops, landed on carriers, and ate chow with the troops would deny aged vets their due? Not good for the upcoming election in November. It looked bad for Congress also. 383 of the 475 members had cosponsored the bill, saying that they approved it and would back its support on the floor. Veterans hung Bilirakis out to dry and shot at him on the net. Most asked what kind of deal he had sold out to in order to step in front of other Congressmen and spit in the face of vets that had supported his election. Then, when the house came up with a compromise bill that had the fingerprints of Rove all over it the vets saw the connection. HR1588 would give 50% of the disabled vets their retired pay and medical compensation and treatment but the under 50% would have to wait in a ten year phase-in program. Rove had diffused the uprising and at the same time split the veterans into groups that had won and those that could not win. As of the time of this writing, the clamor over HR303 has died. Nancy Pelosi, the Congresswoman from California that so gallantly challenged the RNC to come forward and act on HR303 is silent. This is odd in this phase of the election, when at a time when Democrats are looking for anything that would expose Republican partisanship, she has choked on the material in front of her. The letter writing to congressmen by vets has come to a halt because the Congressmen’s rebuttal is ( of course as Rove promised it would be) “We acted on your bill, what more do you want?? Everyone will get something from HR1588”. I’m sure they will. It’s just a matter of time of course. Ten years to be exact. With most of the vets that are disabled and in their 70’s the greater win percentage is with the government. They will never have to pay about 45% of those that were eligible before Karl Rove made another deal on behalf of GWB. What happened to the author of the bill that took the flak for the blockade?-Bilirakis? Political magic. Some body someplace saw that he was having problems in his ninth district constituents in the upcoming election and gave him a boost by making him the VFW poster boy of the year or as they called it in their award, “Legislative Congressman of the Year” We asked several VFW posts to tell us how many of the local members voted to see that happen and the outstanding response was.. “National does all that—we don’t have any input.” I’ll bet Karl Rove had some input. He usually does. That was our article on Karl about a year ago. We'll do another one next year when Karl finishes his assignment.
William Gast Editor, wesupportthevets.com
Bill Gast USN (RET) DAV Editor, We support the Vets Read the feedback responses here
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