Paul Alexander: How Karl Rove Played Politics While People Drowned
By Logan Murphy Friday Jun 06, 2008 2:30pm
Karl Rove's role in building, running and ruining the most corrupt, inept and politically polarizing presidential administration in U.S. history, is the stuff of legends. The below excerpts from Paul Alexander's new book, "Machiavelli's Shadow: The Rise And Fall Of Karl Rove", gives a stunning picture of how Rove, within hours of Hurricane Katrina making landfall, put his political machine to work protecting George Bush, his administration and their Republican allies in the Gulf Coast region, by smearing both New Orlenas Mayor, Ray Nagin and Louisiana Governor, Kathleen Blanco.
With Karl Rove neutered and disgraced, Alexander found that people (politicians) directly involved in the disaster were finally willing to speak openly about the immoral, disgraceful and unforgivably political nature of the Bush Administration's handling of one the worst natural disasters ever to strike the United States -- and was widely viewed as a seminal moment in the downward spiral of George Bush, Karl Rove and the Republican party, from which they never recovered. Excerpts from Salon:
On Monday, August 29, 2005, at about 6:00 a.m., Hurricane Katrina slammed into the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. A category 5 hurricane until just before landfall, it was one of the worst storms ever to hit the Gulf Coast. Kathleen Blanco, the governor of Louisiana, had been briefed extensively about what to expect when the storm hit, which was why, on the Friday night before the storm reached the coast, she signed papers declaring Louisiana to be in a state of emergency. Based on what she had been told by her advisers and what she knew from being a native Louisianan, she understood that Katrina, creeping gradually toward land with sustained winds of a strength rarely seen in a hurricane, could prove to be catastrophic for Louisiana, and particularly for New Orleans.
If Bush had not seen what was taking place by Tuesday, Karl Rove had. The first evidence of Rove's involvement in the Katrina disaster occurred on Tuesday afternoon. "Rove understood what a nightmare this was for the president," Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana says, "so he went into high gear on the spin thing they're so good at in the White House. Rove had David Vitter, the Republican senator from Louisiana. I was at a press conference and David Vitter walked up to the mike and said, 'I just got off the phone with Karl Rove.' I looked at the governor and she looked at me, like, 'Why is David Vitter on the phone with Karl Rove?' I mean, he could have been talking to generals, the president himself, but Rove is just a political hatchet man."
"I could not believe that the president of the United States, staged by Karl Rove himself, had come down to the city of New Orleans and basically put up a stage prop. It was like you had gone to a studio in California and filmed a movie. They put the props up and the minute we were gone they took them down. All the dump trucks were gone. All the Coast Guard people were gone. It was an empty spot with one little crane. It was the saddest thing I have ever seen in my life. At that moment I knew what was going on and I've been a changed woman ever since. It truly changed my life." Read on...
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Rove and Bush need to be tried for their crimes.
ALL of BushCo. needs to be tried for their crimes. They are traitors, murderers and thieves.
Evidence against this administration:
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Evidence suggesting Administration is innocent:
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rove and this disgusting administration have taken politics to an unimagined new low.
This man is truly the worst thing to hit America aside from Katrina. He needs to be tarred and feathered....along with the idiot who sleeps in the White House.
I would suggest that Woodrow Wilson's presidency was more inept and corrupt.
Woodrow Wilson was responsible for resegregating the Federal Government, permited armed invasion of the US southern border, and got us into WWI on term by which we provided infantry, but had no artillery, aircraft, or machineguns with which to support our infantry.
When our soldiers came home, because of his administrations policy of returning units whole, complete with the sick, a flu epidemic errupted, killing 675,000 in the US and about 25 million around the world. The effects of the disease were kept hidden for years by illegal and unconstitutional censorship.
This is something that needed to be said 2 years ago - not now that Rove is no longer in the position he once was. The people who did not speak out against it at the time are just as complicit in deceiving the public.
Don Meaker @ 4:
Bush isn't done. He is working on it.
Numinous @ 1:
Please let this happen to these inhuman trolls!!!!
Hey Karl.
The American people.......We're coming for you.
"...widely viewed as a seminal moment in the downward spiral of George Bush, Karl Rove and the Republican party, from which they never recovered. Excerpts from Salon:..."
From which they never recovered?
Since when did the Republican Party cease to exist?
They may yet recover.
Hulk @ 3:
Exactly right on the GD mark!!!! I get nauseated looking at Rove, also hearing Bush speak and Cheney snarl in that nasty way of his!! Jackasses!!
Why is Mary Landrieu speaking out now? She knew what was going on when all this was happening, yet all I saw of her in news clips was prasing Bushco and what appeared to me to be just so much carrying of Bush's water for him.
rove's nickname amongst bush's people..turdblossom
karl @ 12:
Outside that circle: Shit Weed.
xoites defends Constitution @ 13:
funny
Paul @ 11:
A paycheck usually overruns any sense of common decency or public service.
hmmm with rove in the shadows of mcsame's campaign in mind, i wonder if the soon to be publishing of this book had anything at all to do with the mcbush crew spending more public time in the outskirts of n.o. the past couple of weeks. seems like a rovian move to me. but then again is everything the repubes do and have done following the rove model.
Someone refresh my old memory, didn't Bush put Rove in charge of rebuilding N.O.?
mccain can't run from his katrina related voting record
i thought was government was to help those who can't help themselves........rove knows they blew it
Don Meaker @ 4:
I think the true disaster that
isthis administration, won't be realised until after they're gone. They will definitely take the number 1 spot for worst presidency.We've only seen the tip of the iceberg so far with these people.
And the death toll count, I can see it even passing 25 million, once all the people killed in the war on terror and the environmental catastrophe that is heading our way sometime in the near future, which could kill hundreds of millions, even billions.
Gee, since Rove was a political analyst for the regime, maybe some enterprising plaintiffs law firm could tie the Katrina response to Bush, Rove, et al, as a political maneuver, and sue the whole bunch into penury! That’d be a fun trial to watch.
I remember seeing her cry when the helicopter flew over that one lonely little crane. Good for her for standing up to bush and not signing away her control.
I'm reading the book, "Smells Like Dead Elephants" by Matt Taibbi. In it he says that Karl is no genius, he's just mean enough to do anything to get his way. I agree.
Also in this book Matt talks about his experiences in NOLA just after Katrina. That place was truly a hell for everyone there.
Rove and Bush truly have no conscience. How can people function without one? If I did the sorts of things those men have done, I know I would eventually kill myself. I would have to because I couldn't live with myself knowing what I had done and caused to be done.
Don Meaker @ 4:
lets not forget that wilson also sent troops against their own...led by douglas macarthur, those troops shot down the ww1 vets who were protesting their treatment
but i do believe that bush is right up there...
guess historians will have to argue this out
pissed off patricia @ 21:
Stay alive, Patricia. :)
does anyone wonder why there is a truther movement?
these people will use anything to forward their political goals and make sure that their buddies stay billionaires
and they achieved their goals here...jindal is now the guv
What more need anyone say about Republicans?
xoites defends Constitution @ 23:
many believe you can't powerful and/or rich unless you have no conscience...rove took dirty to a new level...many couldn't do it...he has an inferiority complex he became accepted by doing others dirty work......nothing to be proud
xoites defends Constitution @ 23:
You are correct Patricia. These people are not normal. They are demented. And the people who still support them are either making big money off of them or they are stupid. It's that simple.
Bush is a complete and utter failure... in everything he has ever done. It is so unbelievable to me that enough people actually voted for him for him to be able to steal the elections. Especially the second one. I get so angry I could spit.
George Bush hates black people.
The only way to stomach this sickening report is to hope that there will soon be a DOJ that investigates criminal behavior and sends political terrorists to prison. Karl Rove needs to know that there will soon be no get-out-of-jail-free cards dished out by Bush when he is in the cell next door.
Congress may never impeach this scum, but when the rabble begin to rat each other out, there will be plenty of corruption to clean up.
I propose that we build a federal prison in New Orleans, confine the convicted loyal bushies, and put them to work rebuilding every home in the Lower Ninth Ward. Their retirement income should be used to compensate victims of their incompetent negligence, and civil suits should collect every penny of their wealth, and use it to repair the coast.
And the only thing these stinking CON's can say is everyone for themselves, well except for the No Bid Contract stuff.
Does anyone else feel like they will be able to breathe again like they used to when these scumbags are finally out of office? I feel like I've been living ina different country for the last 8 years and I won't ever feel the same until they're gone.
xoites defends Constitution @ 23:
Not to worry. It's almost Happy Hour at my home, and I wouldn't want to miss that :)
@ Don Meaker, post 4...
Uh?!
Ok, let's decide that, but what's that got to do with anything???
We still have a bunch of criminal idiots in charge right now, so arguing over whether some other guy was worse or not some 50 years ago makes little sense, don't you think?
Hold on until bush is out of office and can no longer bounch his buddies out of jail. Then go after Rove first. You know that fu*ker is scared to death of going to prison. As they used to say in the old movies, "he will sing like a canary" to protect his ass.
BushCo are truly scum. Pure trash. I laugh at all the people that voted for Bush. You and your kind need to suffer the consequences of what has happened over the last 7 years. If you came to my house begging for food or shelter, I'd simply shut the door in your face.
Wow,this guy is gooood. quoting satan.
Hulk @ 3:
You mean Jeff Gannon?
rove was the mastermind behind the extreme right evangelical movement......any are one issue people that were used by the gop......poor lower middle class that believe the government is the enemy....the message those sinners you have an education live in san fran....that crap.. these people although religous easy to stir into a mix of hate and emotion.....rove tells those people we don't like them or respect them it's powerful....not this time turdblossom
Even if McCain were only half as bad as bush, he would be intolerable. We need a new slate and new people if we are ever going to turn this mess around.
I bet everyone here knew where Katrina was and what was about to happen on the Gulf Coast, how did the administration avoid knowing?
casper46 @ 38:
He sleeps downstairs in the rape room.
pissed off patricia @ 40:
no disrespect.......i personally won't tolerate mcbush we can't
Brownie, Bush, Rove. Diversions. Scapegoats. Who was ultimately responsible for the rescue?
"New Orleans 'Dodged the Bullet'"
Director of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff "told Meet the Press's Tim Russert on Sunday, September 4, 2005, that one reason for the delay in getting federal aid to Katrina victims was that 'everyone' thought the crisis had passed when the storm left:
"I remember on Tuesday morning picking up newspapers and I saw headlines, 'New Orleans Dodged The Bullet,' because if you recall the storm moved to the east and then continued on and appeared to pass with considerable damage but nothing worse. It was on Tuesday that the levee--may have been overnight Monday to Tuesday--that the levee started to break," Chertoff told Russert.
Fact: None of the 477 newspaper front pages from 46 countries presented alphabetically dated Tuesday, August 30, 2005, stored in the Newseum show the headline "New Orleans 'Dodged the Bullet'."
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=%22New_Orleans_'Dodged_the_Bullet'%22
"within hours of Hurricane Katrina making landfall, put his political machine to work protecting George Bush"
Classic
A whole major city heavily impacted, thousands stranded, starving, thirsting, and the White House staff moves to protect the president politcally.
Classic 21st century Republicans
karl @ 42:
my bad i got jumpy on the keys a lot of coffee
Karl Rove did some dirt down in Arkansas too, running off the state attorney -- it's almost like he's going after the poor Southern states thinking nobody pays attention to what goes on in Alabama or Arkansas... sick freak
karl @ 42:
Well, I did use the word "intolerable". So I think we are in agreement.
karl @ 45:
Okeedokee, no problem. It's all good!
i would love rove to get busted on the don siegelman case after bush is out no immunity
As somebody who has come down with what Bill Maher calls "fuck-up fatigue", I still somehow managed to feel nauseated reading that article. And I don't think it's the heat.
My God, How can Americans be so stupid and voted for Bush twice? We knew better in 2004, but Bush and Chaney playing the fear card turned us into a bunch of pansys. Now look at what has become of us. My we heal and reflect on the last 8 years of this disaterous administation.
Apparently she missed Bush's performance after 9-11.
I had not heard this story before. I am sitting at my computer, fighting back tears. These people are completely inhuman. They do not possess one single redeeming quality. There is no punishment that is too severe for them. They make SH look like a boy scout.
P.D. @ 51:
I hate to inform you of this, but here are a lot of stupid people in America. The Neocons would love to have more of them, so they're attacking education and trying to make claims that mystical beliefs are scientific fact.
People, stop watching 'reality' T.V. and crappy sitcoms. Wake up!
MacDaKnife @ 53:
They do have one redeeming quality:
They are mortal.
Yeah, I know. When you have an electorite who still thinks Obama is muslim, you're surrounded by dumb-asses.
P.D. @ 51:
trying living in a "red state" with a less tax base,lowest high school graduation rate,high crime and highest single pregnancy rate people that vote republican because they think there avoiding taxes...after 9-11 the no fear culture took of a lot a good it did....this demographic has a lot of hate for people not like them...were told were not patriotic certain right wingers believe this nonsense.
Jeez karl, I don't think I'll ever move to a Red State. They would think I'm a heathen.
For those who may have missed it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otQyfSYAnTI
I've said it publicly and I will say it again, unless he proves me wrong, Karl Rove is a traitor to the United States of America and he should be tried and sentenced for his treasonous crimes.
P.D. @ 58:
P.D. @ 58:
<blockquote
don't do it without caution.....this country became very divided people that hate fellow americans because you don't live your life like them.......as a rule humans are insecure...i remember trying to have conversations with peoplein reno about 9-11 red faced over the top based on bull shit
Even Landrieu makes me sick. Back then, she was going on TV harping on about how thankful she is for the efforts of Bush and how wonderful their contributions were. All the while, this was going on, and it took her how many years to come clean and stop pretending like everything they were doing was honky-dory. What a fraud.
Why on earth Landrieu was shocked by the duplicity of the Bush administration is inexplicable. Those evil SOB's had Big Lied the country into unleashing war a scant two years earlier, as all but the willfully blind well recognized. They were then, and remain, monstrous, capable of perpetrating any type of wickedness. Just who did she think she was dealing with?
When Rove is buried they're going to have to salt the earth and probably put a titanium cover over his coffin, because the stink of his wretchedness will be enough to peel the skin off passerby.
[ How should I put this, We do not allow any comments advocating violence. OK. Site Monitor]
xoites defends Constitution @ 55:
The money quote of this thread!
xoites defends Constitution @ 23:
your conscience is what give you value as a person and a human being.
those two have only negative value.
To really get an idea of the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans, watch this. I know its a music video, but the images really hit hard.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWhlytQgcpk
At the very least Rove, Bush and all the rest should be charged with "depraved indifference" in the deaths of thousands in NO and along the Gulf Coast. I grew up just a few miles from Biloxi along the coast and the damage there was devastating. They received more help there quicker because of those damn buffoons Haley Barbour and Trent Lott but many are still trying to recover. Most all the homes along the beach in my small town were destroyed. I go back to visit about once a year and it's very strange to see things so changed. I grew up with hurricanes coming in every year but this was a monster. As soon as Bush can no longer pardon anyone we should all see them arrested and jailed for the rest of their miserable lives.
Great article. Thanks for putting this up and linking to the rest.
All you need to know about bush and rove is contained in the story of the floating photo-op. Imagine all the people - hundreds at time - lining up for relief and as soon as the mikes and cameras leave, they close the "relief station", leaving lines of hungry, suffering people standing in the lurch. The Picayune had some of the accounts. I can't say how much I hate these people, but I'm sure someone could understand the depths of my deep, abiding hatred. It's visceral, palpable.
pissed off patricia @ 40:
they knew! they were given a personal briefing by the #1 weatherman in the US. then they walked off and boos went to celebrate mcAss' birthday.
the only objective KKKarl had was that if they removed enough democrats from NOLa, then the city and the state would have a repug majority.
CoIntelPro for Pronktastic Democratic Party Victory @ 72:
Even I could see that storm coming 3-4 days out. And I just track hurricanes and the like for a hobby.
Actually if I remember correctly I started tracking Katrina right before she moved into the gulf. In Between Cuba and Floriduh.
So I guess that was 6-7 days before she made landfall.
God, the Salon story makes me absolutely sick. Might even start looking for a lynching rope....heck, they're not even worth the effort. What a bunch of scoundrels and incompetents. And Scott McClellan is right: they politicize everything. And that's your Republican party in action, my dear friends. No different under McCain.
KKKarl Rove is a bushel basket full of cold dried horse shit.
There are 4 assh-l-s in that photo! 2 are covered up with clothing. Can you name the 2 others that are fully exposed?? Bush looks drunk to me !!!!
Paul @ 25:
one word: REPUBLICANASSWIPES!!!
How many Americans are in jail for lesser offenses against society? Never mind.
VietVet67 @ 17:
Yes, he did.
And not only were the needs of NOLA ignored, flotillas of private boaters who wanted to help were turned away, like some vast evil experiment was being conducted to see how long the victims of Katrina could hold out on their own -- or how many would die. KKKarl's unprecedented fu(kery in action.
I'm sick of reading about how corrupt Republicans are. I'm tired of hearing about them breaking the law, lying, cheating, stealing elections, and sending brave Americans to die for no reason at all. WE KNOW. ENOUGH ALREADY. Democrats need to grow a spine and put these criminals in jail!
annick @ 82:
I have to agree. It hard NOT to be cynical. They have all skated and I have a sickening feeling they will continue to skate.
I'm sick of hearing about it and I'm sick of complaining about it. BushCo will get away with everything. We'll see all of them on FoxNews and they'll have a book deals. And we will not give a shit in a couple years. Meanwhile, lets giggle while we watch Gregory dance! Cynical much? You bet.
How is it that for those of us who live outside the US, this 8 year slow motion train wreck was predictable from minute one? Everyone I know personally KNEW that Iraq was based on lies. We KNEW Katrina was coming and would destroy Louisiana. We KNEW your economy would be destroyed.
This is not hindsight. We continue to watch in horror at what the US has become.
We all know how depraved BushCo is but I think we're becoming truly aware that their depravity goes far past what thought.
BTW, has Obama said or been asked his thoughts on assigning an Independent Counsel to look into all of the crimes of BushCo? I know the thoughts are that he'll pull the "let it go so the country can heal" deal but I truly believe he needs to do it. There is just no way these people can get away scotfree after it's proven they've lied at every turn not only for political gain but for financial as well. If we're going to regain our standing in the free world it's something he just has to do.