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TechnoratiKarl Rove: Self-Deluded or Consciously Dishonest?
Karl Rove, Wall St. Journal Op-Ed page, today:
Obama's Straw Men
Why does he routinely ascribe to opponents views they don't espouse?
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. . . .
In his inaugural address -- which was generally graceful toward the opposition -- Mr. Obama proclaimed, "We have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord." Which Republican ran against him on fear, conflict and discord?
Mr. Obama portrays himself as a nonideological, bipartisan voice of reason. Everyone resorts to straw men occasionally, but Mr. Obama's persistent use of the device is troubling. Continually characterizing those who disagree with you in a fundamentally dishonest way can be the sign of a person who lacks confidence in the merits of his ideas.
It was said that Lincoln crafted his arguments in "resonant words that enriched the political dialogue of his age." Mr. Obama's straw men aren't enriching the dialogue of our age. They are cheapening it.
Associated Press, March 18, 2006:
The President And The Straw Man
'Some Say' But Bush Won't Say Who When Arguing Policy Points
When the president starts a sentence with "some say" or offers up what "some in Washington" believe, as he is doing more often these days, a rhetorical retort almost assuredly follows.
The device usually is code for Democrats or other White House opponents. In describing what they advocate, Mr. Bush often omits an important nuance or substitutes an extreme stance that bears little resemblance to their actual position.
He typically then says he "strongly disagrees," conveniently knocking down a straw man of his own making. . . .
A specialist in presidential rhetoric, Wayne Fields of Washington University in St. Louis, views it as "a bizarre kind of double talk" that abuses the rules of legitimate discussion.
"It's such a phenomenal hole in the national debate that you can have arguments with nonexistent people," Fields said. "All politicians try to get away with this to a certain extent. What's striking here is how much this administration rests on a foundation of this kind of stuff" . . . .
Mr. Bush has caricatured the other side for years, trying to tilt legislative debates in his favor or score election-season points with voters. . . .
Campaigning for Republican candidates in the 2002 midterm elections, the president sought to use the congressional debate over a new Homeland Security Department against Democrats.
He told at least two audiences that some senators opposing him were "not interested in the security of the American people." In reality, Democrats balked not at creating the department, which Mr. Bush himself first opposed, but at letting agency workers go without the usual civil service protections. . . .
Straw men have made more frequent appearances in recent months, often on national security, once Mr. Bush's strong suit with the public but at the center of some of his difficulties today. . . .
Recently defending his decision to allow the National Security Agency to monitor without subpoenas [sic] the international communications of Americans suspected of terrorist ties, Mr. Bush has suggested that those who question the program underestimate the terrorist threat.
"There's some in America who say, 'Well, this can't be true there are still people willing to attack,"' Mr. Bush said during a January visit to the NSA.
The president has relied on straw men, too, on the topics of taxes and trade, issues he hopes will work against Democrats in this fall's congressional elections. . . .
"Some people believe the answer to this problem is to wall off our economy from the world," he said this month in India, talking about the migration of U.S. jobs overseas. "I strongly disagree
Another time he said, "Some say that if you're Muslim you can't be free."
"There are some really decent people," the president said earlier this year, "who believe that the federal government ought to be the decider of health care ... for all people."
Of course, hardly anyone in mainstream political debate has made such assertions.
Karl Rove's entire strategy for the Bush presidency was grounded in straw men accusations. Here's what Bush said in his 2008 speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference, summing up his entire presidency: "We believe our nation has the right to defend itself -- even if sometimes others disagree." There, as always, was George Bush, courageously standing against the "anti-self-defense" movement in the U.S. -- also known as "those who oppose torture, illegal spying on Americans, invading and occupying other countries who haven't attacked and couldn't attack us and any other policies George Bush favored."
By contrast, look at one of the alleged "straw men" of Obama's prominently cited by Rove: "We have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord." Rove objects: "Which Republican ran against him on fear, conflict and discord?" How about the people who accused him of "pallin' around with Terrorists" or who said: "Terrorist states are seeking new-clear weapons without delay - he wants to meet them without preconditions. Al Qaeda terrorists still plot to inflict catastrophic harm on America - he's worried that someone won't read them their rights?" or who accused him of being a "Marxist" and a "Communist" and his wife of being an angry America-hater and who circulated a campaign to convince Americans that he was a secret Muslim and an anti-Semite. One might also want to include Dick Cheney's 2004 warning that electing John Kerry would mean we would be attacked again by Terrorists and his current warnings that Obama is now making a nuclear Terrorist attack more likely, as well as Karl Rove's very own series of campaigns that relied on little other than standard fear-mongering.
When Karl Rove says these things, does he first delude himself into believing that he opposes and would not use "straw men" tactics of the type which, with a straight face, he's self-righteously condemning today? Or he is fully aware that he spent the last eight years degrading our discourse with exactly that tactic and is now purposely projecting what he himself did onto Obama?
Either way, Rove, as always, is the living and breathing embodiment of the limitless deceit which our political discourse not only permits but rewards. Just imagine what it says about our country that Karl Rove -- Karl Rove -- knows he can sermonize against people who "cheapen" rather than "enrich" the "dialogue of our age" without suffering any reputational damage for such side-splitting dishonesty. To the contrary, other than Matt Drudge, no individual is more adored by the establishment journalists of The Liberal Media. As Gloria Borger of CNN and U.S. News reverently put it: "when Rove speaks, the political class pays attention -- usually with good reason."
42 Comments so far
Show AllIn his inaugural address -- which was generally graceful toward the opposition -- Mr. Obama proclaimed, "We have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord." Which Republican ran against him on fear, conflict and discord?
Dosen't Karl remember that catchy tune????
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-zoPgv_nYg
As Greenwald touches on at the end, this is classic Rove. Take your biggest flaw and project it on your opponent. This is probably second in his repertoire to taking your opponents greatest strength and undermining with false claims.
Karl Rove absolutly knows what he is doing. His entire career has rested on this very tactic of engaging in reprehensible acts and then claiming his opponents are doing that very thing.
He plans these things so well that if the public, press and authorities get on to the deception or crime there is always some stooge there to take the blame. Witness Scooter Libby.
No Rove is not deluded. He is a cancer cell in the blood stream of the body politic looking for a new place to matasticize and form another tumor.
Rovek takes hypocrisy to a new level by straw-manning the straw-man. Leftists should not burn more than a calorie analyzing Rovek. Instead, note that Rovek is merely performing his duty to the empire, feeding the anger/confusion of the deluded authoritarian followers, to make them more deluded followers of more extreme authoritarian elites. This suggests that the real fight is for the minds of the people. This is why we progressives on the far left call for a new campaign to enlighten the people. Screw the carnival of elites. Go to the people and enlighten them, NOW.
So why isn't the Obama admin doing something about that motherfucker Karl Rove? This worthless article wouldn't have to come up if only the Democrats had a fucking spine to PROSECUTE traitors such as Karl Rove !!
Dennis Duncan February 26th, 2009 11:58 pm, as I've written before, I think the slimy Rove has 'secret files' on all the prominent Dems in Congress, similar to the kinds of personal tripe J. Edgar Hoover collected during his fetid career, and he's blackmailing them to stay out of jail. Of course, the Dems have to show they're doing something to satisfy their voters, so they issue ignored subpoenas and strong statements. Bah, Karl is laughing up his sleeve at them.
To quote the old Watergate saw, 'follow the money' if you want to nail Rove -- follow it all the way back to Texas and Junior's first campaign for governor. Follow it to Don Siegelman's political persecution in Alabama. Follow it to Bush's run for president in 2000. Follow it to the Swift Boat frauds. Each step of the way, Karl was lining up illegal backers -- Ken Lay, the Wyly brothers, Bob Perry, Ken Vogel, T. Boone Pickens, et al -- to finance his various underhanded projects so that they wouldn't show up on the books. A smart prosecutor and a good investigator could get the goods on Rove in a couple of months and haul him into court for campaign finance fraud and half a dozen other felonies. We'll see what happens with Holder.
Put that pig on a spit.
Glen Greenwald wrote: "When Karl Rove says these things, does he first delude himself into believing that he opposes and would not use "straw men" tactics of the type which, with a straight face, he's self-righteously condemning today? Or he is fully aware that he spent the last eight years degrading our discourse with exactly that tactic and is now purposely projecting what he himself did onto Obama?"
Obama is driving right-wingers like Count Karlo crazy -- they still don't know exactly what angle of attack to use against him. Karl is also employing one of his favorite tricks here, attack the opposition's strong points by imputing your own pet propanganda methods to them. I wouldn't doubt that secretly Rove's a little jealous as well -- just think if he had had an Obama to work with instead of the fumbling Bush Boy -- the GOP might still be on top.
As it is, whatever Rove says is a puff of air from an emptying party balloon -- when the best the GOP can muster to oppose Obama is the lame and creepy Gov. Bobby Jindal, who was nearly recalled in Louisiana, you know they're in trouble deep.
The simpleminded Gloria Borger may still be impressed by Rove, but, then, most of America doesn't know who Borger is, and could not care less.
Psychosis: Defective or lost contact with reality.
Extreme right wing politics taught by Chicago School of Economics with students like Milton Friedman and Alan Greenspan, both admirers of Ayn Rand. ("The Virtue of Selfishness", "Atlas Shrugged" and creator of "Objectivist Philosophy")
Everything is objectified and any decisions made through emotion (compassion, altruism, sharing, i.e. government social programs, etc.) is considered faulty and invalid. The right wing politics is an intellectual exercise far removed from actual human beings, culture, sociology, etc.
Defective or lost contact with reality: psychosis
And according to Ayn Rand, any compromise from these rigid "axioms" (as she likes to call them) is a sign of weakness. Also, any consideration given to opinions of the majority of the population ("brainwashed sheep") is also a sign of weakness. Strength, according to this philosophy, is never, ever, to waver from these rigid axioms.(government's only role is defence, laissez faire, unfettered, unregulated capitalism)
I was taken in with this rigid philosophy when I was really young because it was so black and white and I was seeking answers. When you are a total disciple of this philosophy, there is a definite answer to everything. This is very appealing when one is young, inexperienced and uneducated. There are no gray, uncomfortable viewpoints to consider. It's all black and white. That is the appeal.
Also, it relieves you from the niggling feelings of compassion when you think about the suffering of others. Everyone pulls up their own bootstraps and whatever situation you are in, it is of your own making. We don't have to be like Atlas, carrying the burden of the whole world on our shoulders. It is not our responsibility, nor is it the government's responsibility. Taxes to pay for anything other than for our defence is robbery.
This kind of thinking dehumanizes and keeps you out of touch with the human community.
Psychosis.
That's all true, seethroughbs February 26th, 2009 4:56 pm, but let's not forget the influence of the infamous Leo Strauss at the UofC. Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle, among others, were acolytes of Strauss, and he believed that the public should be lied to and the truth only known to a small group of elites.
Leo Strauss' Philosophy of Deception
Jim Lobe, AlterNet, May 19, 2003.
http://www.alternet.org/story/15935/
From Lobe's article:
"Strauss is a popular figure among the neoconservatives. Adherents of his ideas include prominent figures both within and outside the administration. They include 'Weekly Standard' editor William Kristol; his father and indeed the godfather of the neoconservative movement, Irving Kristol; the new Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, Stephen Cambone, a number of senior fellows at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) (home to former Defense Policy Board chairman Richard Perle and Lynne Cheney), and Gary Schmitt, the director of the influential Project for the New American Century (PNAC), which is chaired by Kristol the Younger." [...]
"It's hardly surprising then why Strauss is so popular in an administration obsessed with secrecy, especially when it comes to matters of foreign policy. Not only did Strauss have few qualms about using deception in politics, he saw it as a necessity. While professing deep respect for American democracy, Strauss believed that societies should be hierarchical – divided between an elite who should lead, and the masses who should follow. But unlike fellow elitists like Plato, he was less concerned with the moral character of these leaders. According to Shadia Drury, who teaches politics at the University of Calgary, Strauss believed that "those who are fit to rule are those who realize there is no morality and that there is only one natural right – the right of the superior to rule over the inferior."
Doesn't that last line by Strauss pretty much sum up the neocon ideology?
Sioux Rose
SEETHROUGHS: Interesting post. Last night I attended a small dinner party in Ojai Cal and met a brilliant artist. She started talking about evil being an illusion and was so cold and intellectually distant from the very real pain in MILLIONS of lives, the direct cause of terribly inhumane (Chicago School style) policy here and abroad (Latin American experiments mostly of the l980's) that she and I got into a heated argument. It's very glib to pull the "it's all Maya" routine, which essentially says NOTHING is real. Fine; but so long as we ARE embodied, then the experience of living in a human body wired to experience a gamut of emotions is real enough. I do believe there is a greater aspect of the self that transcends the body, but I also honor that being IN a body involves learning lessons specific to emotions, and the highest emotion is empathy or the capacity to FEEL for other.
It's tough to come up against highly intellectual types who see things in terms of pure projection. Her argument was that WE made this evil and it's only an illusion. In the highest sense I might agree, but she doesn't see nuance, that real peoples' lives are shattered everywhere.
It was an interesting encounter, one that's fresh in my mind as I need to find a way to counter some of the points she made that seem so absolute. On the plus side, the organic salad bar lunch places are something SO missing from where I reside in Florida. And the air is so alive with the smells of almost-spring and abundant plant life after a cycle of much-needed rain out here.
Siouxrose February 26th, 2009 7:12 pm, I've talked to 'intellectual realists' like the one you met at that party, with the same kind of dispassionate solipsistic view of pain and suffering. I notice, however, that when they are the ones suffering from the 'slings and arrows' of blunt reality, they are also the first to look for a shoulder to cry on, a loan to pay the rent, or someone to bail them out of jail. There is no stoic suffering in silence with this crowd.
I think that 'pain is only an illusion' argument is akin to what J.H. Galbraith said about conservatives, "The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."
It would seem these 'realists' are indulging in their search for a superior moral justification for ignoring the suffering of others.
The Buddha was also a realist regarding suffering, but he had a capacity for compassion that I don't detect in these 'intellectual realists.'
Try the Austrian school instead.
But principles of economics like "supply and demand" are almost like natural laws and are without compassion.
Gravity won't spare your life if you all out of a 50 story window.
If food is sparse prices will go up and people will be hungry, and not even God can make it otherwise.
Dammerung February 26th, 2009 5:25 pm: "But principles of economics like "supply and demand" are almost like natural laws and are without compassion."
Supply and demand may SEEM to be 'almost like natural laws' but they aren't. All economic systems are creations of human beings, and therefore can be manipulated and changed at will. I grant you that some of these corporate-capitalist 'natural lawyers' are lacking in any shred of compassion, but that is the fault of the person putting that system into effect. As we have seen in the past, 'supply and demand' is often no more than a middleman withholding the supply of a product in order to artificially build demand. That's hardly natural.
You wrote: "Gravity won't spare your life if you all out of a 50 story window."
That is immaterial in this discussion; economic systems are entirely manmade; the law of gravity is a true natural law.
You wrote: "If food is sparse prices will go up and people will be hungry, and not even God can make it otherwise."
God need not be bothered. We now have it within our means -- through modern agricultural techniques, rapid worldwide distribution, deep freezing, vacuum packaging, et al -- to insure such food shortages never happen again. Food is only made sparse when one of the entities lacking compassion I previously mentioned decides they want to cause it to be so in order to increase the price. This is neither a wise, humane nor sustainable approach, as our current economic mess attests.
funny how we manipulate the law of gravity all the time.
funny how supply & demand are constantly manipulated, manufactured.
funny how hunger is manufactured too.
"Some" say that many Americans are a pack of screw heads. "Some" would be right.
The conservative rank and file suffer from a form of schizophrenia characterized by imminence and projection. Imminence takes several forms: millennialism, the sweep of history, an inability to distinguish themselves from the nation. Projection takes the form of attributing their own motivations to others, thereby justifying their own tactics. The attempt to make this diagnosis officially recognized got Wilhelm Reich removed from the Psycholanalytic Association – it too closely resembled the behavior of too many psychoanalysts.
While modern civilization promotes schizophrenia, conservatism in the Roman Empire, for instance, must surely have promoted psychosis. Support for the emperor was often justified specifically on the bloody spectacle of the games; emperors who fought in the arena were often the most widely acclaimed by the public (if not by their competition in the Senate or the army).
>>The conservative rank and file suffer from a form of schizophrenia characterized by imminence and projection.
A desire for low taxes, small government, limited restrictions on freedom, personal responsibility, and peaceful trade relations with other nations is an obvious sign of insanity.
These sound like liberal nostrums, but the question is low taxes for whom? What duties shall the government omit to limit its size? Which restrictions on whose freedom shall be limited? Which persons shall be held responsible and for what? Enforcing trade on unwilling nations with intelligence operations, or military “observers” and “advisors” is certainly the opposite of “peaceful.”
The conservative is the social voice of those who are the beneficiaries of currently existing contracts. The lower taxes are to be for the wealthy – the rest must do their duty. The restrictions are to be removed from business – the rest must submit to the dictates of business in the name of realism. Those who will be held responsible are those who engage in crime in lieu of employment – those who write the laws to suit themselves are held blameless, regardless of the mayhem that results. If other nations refuse or restrict our businesses in trade with them, then peace is foregone and trade on our terms is imposed upon them at gunpoint.
Conservatism finally refuses to acknowledge the fact that individual minds do not exist; they are figments of the societies that create them. This superficialism is manifest in the twin behaviors of individual projection and social imminence – the characteristics of schizophrenia.
Sioux Rose
CLASS ACT: Excellent post. I would only add the link to religious fundamentalism and how it takes these authoritarian beliefs to the next level, that of being faith-based, thus unquestioned. These beliefs and their followers countenance a war that obliterated 1 million of the "wrong" (if retaliation was justified, if the Iraqi debacle had constituted a JUST basis for war) targets, but no worries mate, just go onto the next nation and maybe slay another few hundred thousand, and perhaps in the midst of this faith-based drive towards conquest a perception of what it means to WIN will emerge from the dense moral din.
not insanity, just a limited grasp of reality.
dammerung, how come "conservatives" when in office NEVER do what they say they are going to do? (neither do dems, but since we are on conservatives....)
i don't think it's simply b/c they are not "true conservatives", RINO's or whatever. rather, they get into office and find they CAN'T do those things. the economic, social, and political realities of modern life are too complex for those conservative mantras to work.
>>dammerung, how come "conservatives" when in office NEVER do what they say they are going to do? (neither do dems, but since we are on conservatives....)
Because they're lying, cheating, warmongering scumbags. Just like Democrats.
But the Republican rank-and-file aren't voting for that, they're voting for what I suggested. Just like Democrat rank-and-file vote for peace, huge social programs, more government poking in our lives, and more government bureaucracy. What they get is lying, cheating, warmongering scumbags.
first off, i'm in no way defending democrats. not at all.
but, except for the "peace" part, your description in the last paragraph sounds exactly like the bush admin. (and obama, again except the "peace" part, will do similar things.)
so, you know, point me out some dems or reps who do what they say will. to me, it just seems too easy, too simplistic, to blame the personal moral failings of the individual politician. the system co-opts the individual.
and that's why the conservative mantras you espouse cannot work. they are not an accurate representation of either individual or group psychology.
>>to me, it just seems too easy, too simplistic, to blame the personal moral failings of the individual politician.
For every hundred people hacking at the branches of evil, there is only one striking the root.
Kind of a fluff piece here. I wish Mr. Greenwald would expend his effort marginalizing Rove, instead of giving him credibility by debating his tactics. If the enemy has bought into the Ends Justify The Means mentality, like Rove & Co., then no amount of debate, analysis, fact-checking will make any difference to them. Marginalization is the only way to go. Olbermann does a good job of this by always refering to Limbaugh as "The Comedian Rush Limbaugh".
Sioux Rose
KANE: I had that same sense of the tone of the article. Someone like Rove who owns no soul or moral scruples, added to knowing his ilk OWN the 24/7 echo chamber of too much of mainstream media do not need a little thing like facts or truth to get in the way of their use of the lies told often enough that work as efficiently as truth. If a society WAS well-informed, if its media did the job of providing real information, if representative leaders were not bought and paid for, if the president had ethics and didn't have to sell his soul to get media time ($) to get elected... in other words if one could eradicate all the contexts that make for politics in America today, then perhaps what Rove gets away with would not be possible. But it is Mammon and Mars in charge, and those loyal to these dark entities have a lot of help from high places these days, and they've managed to marginalize the voices of Truth, conscience, and innovation so well that when citizens hear such voices, they are ready to brand them as those of heretics, or otherwise treasonous or flakey.
The best thing that could happen to Karl Rove is a massive fatal coronary in public while choking down his last McDonald's greaseburger.
No doubt, the best thing for America too!
Rove and the others are definitely consciously projecting. Rove's attack upon Obama's "straw man" rhetoric (although "everyone resorts to straw men occasionally") is projection, just like the pre-election hysteria about Democratic voter fraud was projection linking back to 2004 in Ohio and 2000 in Florida.
What I found interesting in reading Rove's full op-ed piece is how there are readily available answers to his series of rhetorical questions, demanding to know "just who" in the Republican ideological camp has staked out a position saying government is too big, federal intervention in the economy the problem rather than part of the solution, and that deregulation is the key to freeing up the invisible hand of the free enterprize marketplace so wealth will trickle down to float all boats.
Each of Rove's posed rhetorical questions demanding to know the identies of the "straw men" can be linked to disciples of the philosophy of Ronald Reagan, various poobahs of the right wing think tank crowd, and often to public pronouncements of Karl Rove himself. There are real, live flesh and blood men out there who still keep babbling about shrinking government down to a size so small it can be strangled and drown in the bathtub like a baby, you know.
That's the difference. John McCain as a GOP candidate may have largely risen above the politics of "fear, conflict and discord", but the Republican National Committee's media campaign against Obama certainly did not, nor does Rush Limbaugh and his buddies today. Them guys ain't straw.
Bill from Saginaw
Karl Rove: Threat or Menace?
· Yr Obd't Servant
...or simply dangerous?
I am not sure whether Bush and company are self-deluded or they are consciously lying.
However, a long time ago I decided that their straw men arguments telegraph their own dirty tricks. Whenever they accuse the opposition of some outrageous dirty trick, I am usually pretty confident that they are describing their own actions.
The real question is whether they are consciously or unconsciously projecting.
Good point!
Obama: The Republicans think you're stupid.
We should all leave turd blossom to the entertaining of his followers with his frequent bursts of flatulism, and concentrate on the far more important issues confronting us.
Excellent suggestion.
Barack Obama and his supporters: Self-deluded or consciously dishonest?
As to Rove, he's completely replaced his mind with bullshit. Not lies - lies are aware of the truth and sidestep around it. Bullshit doesn't know, doesn't want to know, and doesn't care if there is a truth.
rove is such an easy target. he's neither particularly "evil" or "genius." my gawd, leave rove alone. all this over-analysis of rove just plays into the myth that he's something special, unique. "rove is such an evil genius that he manipulated us for years into going along w/all w's B.S." what a crock.
Feeding off of Rove's offal, again, Glen? A Goebbel's speech is a masturbation fantasy for Rove. In fact, since he loves to play the Big Con of Ultimate Spectacle, some opportunistic playright should write for him an Off Off Beltway one-man show titled "Being Josef Goebbels".
Why is that many, too many professed journalists and essayists are as hungry ghosts hovering over, and inhaling as if as nourishment, this verbal defecation?
Get back to substantive writing, Glen, show your substance, and do some good with it, rather than paying the bills with a too easy, dilettantish opinionating.
When Rove speaks, it's a preemptive strike on truth.
Of course he is consciously dishonest. Accusing your opponents of doing that which your are doing is a classic propaganda technique.
Rove's success is the result of combining and applying the most successful rhetorical strategies of the past century.
As to title of this piece: Karl Rove: Self-Deluded or Consciously Dishonest? I would have to say, Glenn, the answer is clear: Both!