Insight on Rove’s ‘blacklist’

February 7, 2006

Insight, an off-shoot of Sun Myung Moon’s far-right Washington Times, continues to run strange items about the Bush gang. This week’s issue includes an article about hardball political tactics from Karl Rove.

The White House has been twisting arms to ensure that no Republican member votes against President Bush in the Senate Judiciary Committee’s investigation of the administration’s unauthorized wiretapping.

Congressional sources said Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove has threatened to blacklist any Republican who votes against the president. The sources said the blacklist would mean a halt in any White House political or financial support of senators running for re-election in November.

“It’s hardball all the way,” a senior GOP congressional aide said.

According to the article, the White House is in a near panic over the possibility that the Senate Judiciary Committee might conclude that Bush violated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which, as Insight put it, “could lead to impeachment proceedings.” As a result, the piece said, Rove has been “lining up” GOP members of the committee, “one by one,” explaining that disloyalty will lead to blacklisting.

To reiterate a point I raised a couple of weeks ago, there are plenty of reasons for skepticism when it comes to Insight’s reporting. That said, I still can’t figure out why the far-right Washington Times’ “sister publication” keeps publishing pieces that make Bush look bad.

In November, Insight ran an item explaining that Bush has become melancholy and paranoid. In January, Insight quoted “administration sources” talking about internal turmoil at the Bush White House. This month, it’s GOP congressional sources dishing dirt about Rove’s hardball tactics.

Who are these sources? Why does Insight keep running articles that paint the White House in a negative light? It’s just odd.

“Why does Insight keep running articles that paint the White House in a negative light?”

Dont you see? It’s proof of a liberal bias in the media!

  • Who and why, indeed? Another factor is that senators will also be feeling a lot of pressure from their own constituents who will be watching like hawks to see how their elected representatives handle this matter.

    So do they cave to Rovian pressure to toe the party line, or do they cave to constituent pressure to do the right thing or they’ll get voted out of office anyway?

    Sucks to be a corrupt politician these days, doesn’t it?

  • Dont you see? It’s proof of a liberal bias in the media!

    You know, I didn’t think of that one.

    It’s a good thing I know you’re kidding.

  • I wonder how much of this will make it beyond the liberal blogs and into the nation’s water cooler conversations?

    It’s something of a new phenomenon: public knowledge that some unelected pile of shit like Turdblossom telling a bunch of US Senators that they better support the dictator even if it goes against their constituents’ wishes — or, heaven forfend, their sense of law and justice, let alone their consciences.

    Incidentally, the more I hear replays of Gonzo’s commentary before the Senate Judiciary Committee, the more I occasionally get the sense that I’m hearing Michael Jackson. Something in the voice quality. Strange.

  • Well, this is verging on tinfoil-hatdom, but these stories, with their incessantly personal slant, could be counterfires being set by Rove — by making the only negative info out there highly focused on the personae of Bush and Rove, it might tend to color all media coverage, and to imply that all attacks on Bush/Rove are at base personal attacks, rather than logistical or logical critiques.

    FISA wiretapping unconstitutional, say the Dems? Bah, that’s just a personal attack on Bush — etc.

  • Wishful Thinking Warning:

    Could this be the first sign of a rift in the Right? Just speculate with me —

    Insight/WaTimes have an independent “base” (financial and otherwise) from the Moonies. They predate Dumbya and have confidence they will post-date the Terrible Texans as well. So they believe they can afford to be the canary in the coalmine to a greater degree than other groups.

    Lets then speculate that they have come to a crass conclusion: the Bush-Rove Crime Family is no longer the best long term hope/spokesteam/strategy for the loonies on the Right. Dumbya is a lame duck second-termer with falling poll numbers. Rove is under a cloud of suspicion (and for good measure and knowing Rove, lets say somewhere along the line he stepped on teh toes of or otherwise pissed off a honcho at Insight). But as long as the Texans still have a base of power and influence, the “next crop” who will lead the movement forward really can’t come of age.

    So the equally-evil folk at the Moonie Base decide to do something utterly Machiavellian: hasten the irrelevance of the incumbants so that (a) they cannot do any further damage to the Movement that might outlast their own terms and (b) try to do so fast enough to salvage 2006, and (c) no matter what, create circumstances more favorable — i.e. more “oxygen” in the room — for newer, less publicly tainted Loony Leaders to blossom.

    Loyalty to the Movement ultimately trumping Loyalty to the Texans would really not be that surprising would it? “Loyalty” is a pretty malleable concept for amoral hacks.

  • What I find interesting is the assumption behind Rove’s arm-twisting: that Bush’s political and financial support is of paramount importance to Reps and Sens. No doubt they are doing some basic math in their head: Will the support I get from Bush offset the negatives of being supported by him? Could I profit more from rejecting Bush? And would Bush even pay off once the hearings are over? With so many formerly stalwart allies abandoning Bush, you’d think Rove wouldn’t want to force this issue.

  • Brilliant analysis, Zeitgeist! It would certainly explain what’s happening at Insight these days.

  • I don’t know much about Insight but I used to post in the now-defunct NYT’s Abuzz forum. A nice feature was the ability to email an invitation to Abuzz to anyone in the world.

    I wrote a post about the apparent hypocrisy of the Rev. Moon who owned the Washington Times but invested in a car factory in North Korea. I wanted to know how Moon reconciled his criticism of North Korea with his North Korean investments.

    I sent an invitation to read the post to the Korean Central News Agency at http://www.kcna.co.jp. A couple of weeks later, I was delighted to read that “certain Christians” should watch their mouths.

    You might want to start keeping an eye on the KCNA website for clues. It used to have a terrific writer who generated superb criticism of the Bush administration. The site enumerates North Korean achievements in the arts and sciences along with US military movements and the visits of world leaders to Pyongpang.

    Late one Sunday night a couple of years ago, I read a story on the CNN website about North Koreans preferring to deal with former president, Bill Clinton. I later read that the story was a mistake. By who, I don’t know.

  • Congressional sources said Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove has threatened to blacklist any Republican who votes against the president. The sources said the blacklist would mean a halt in any White House political or financial support of senators running for re-election in November.

    In an election year when Bush might be a bigger liability than an asset I’m not sure why this strategy would even work that well. Especially in light of Bush’s 2007 budget which has serious potential to make a lot of GOPers distance themselves from Bush.

  • How many present seats occupied by Republicans actually are up for grabs in ’06 that Rove could put the screws to? Not that many are there?

  • (GLOBAL FORWARNING):-YHWH- John F. Kennedy Sr. was healed and hidden and will step from hiding to become the beast, aka antichrist. JFK Sr ss# is 600-60-0006. The next pope will be the false prophet. -WATCH- GODS PLAN IS PERFECT. Bush will be taken out of the way, AS WRITTEN, then this will come to pass. BILLIONS WILL DIE. Be ready to empty all cities and unite and work for GOD. This message is going out worldwide. Englewood,TnUSA-BRUCE DAVID FRAZIER-ESSENES/MELCHISEDEC/CHEROKEE TROD/DJM -WATCH- YHWH

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