Monday, March 3, 2008

How Low is Too Low for Karl Rove?

Speaking of newly discovered blogs (at least to me), we have WriteChic, a most welcome addition to the Alabama blogosphere.

WriteChic is written by Melissa King, who has worked in journalism and education. She lived in Arizona before calling Alabama home.

In a recent post, WriteChic notes that Karl Rove has actually suggested there is such a thing as playing too dirty in politics. How low do you have to go in order to reach that level? Rove suggests that Republicans stoop too low when they refer to Barack Obama by his middle name--Hussein.

WriteChic points out numerous incongruities in Rove's statement. For one, he says that the use of Hussein does not help John McCain, the presumptive GOP nominee for president. But this is the same Rove who pushed all kinds of ugly rumors about McCain in 2000.

This also is the same Rove who apparently thinks it is fine to try to get pictures of a political opponent in a compromising position. We recently learned that from 60 Minutes' report on the prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman.

But use someone's middle name? Gosh, that's hitting below the belt.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow, thank you. That was really nice.

Anonymous said...

Rove said using the middle name would be perceived as racist and cost votes. Rove's version of the Southern strategy has always been a two track campaign. One that allows a proper disassociation from the racists and suckers in the soccer moms. And, another that calls for the use of code words that let the racists that the republicans really do want to "keep the niggers down." But you know we can't just come out and say so. All Rove is saying is that repeating Obama's middle name won't work for the up front campaign. I think the code words for McCain this time around are probably still being tested in selected focus groups.

Jim Gundlach
posting as Anonymous because the passwords keep getting lost.