{"id":15096,"date":"2008-04-03T09:15:38","date_gmt":"2008-04-03T13:15:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/15096.html"},"modified":"2008-04-03T09:15:38","modified_gmt":"2008-04-03T13:15:38","slug":"rove-attacks-candidate-for-being-arrogant-and-lazy-buries-the-needle-on-irony-meter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/rove-attacks-candidate-for-being-arrogant-and-lazy-buries-the-needle-on-irony-meter\/","title":{"rendered":"Rove attacks candidate for being arrogant and lazy, buries the needle on irony meter"},"content":{"rendered":"

Karl Rove sat down with GQ for a surprisingly interesting interview<\/a>, published online this week, in which the former White House aide makes it pretty clear that he has a grudging respect for Hillary Clinton, whom he holds in relatively high regard, and seems rather disgusted with Barack Obama.<\/p>\n

At one point during the lengthy discussion, Rove explained why he rejects the notion that Republicans will support Obama in fairly large numbers, and actually believes it’s McCain who can win over Dems.<\/p>\n

Rove: There are Democrats, particularly blue-collar Democrats, who defect to McCain because they see McCain as a patriotic figure and they see Obama as an elitist who’s looking down his nose at ’em. Which he is. That comment where he said, you know, “After 9\/11, I didn’t wear a flag lapel pin because true patriotism consists of speaking out on the issues, not wearing a flag lapel pin”? Well, to a lot of ordinary people, putting that flag lapel pin on is true patriotism. It’s a statement of their patriotic love of the country. And for him to sit there and dismiss it as he did–<\/p>\n

GQ: You’re not wearing a flag pin, Karl.<\/p>\n

Rove: Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t. But I respect those who consciously get up in the morning and put a flag lapel pin on.<\/p>\n

GQ: Do you see the elitist thing in other ways?<\/p>\n

Rove: Obama is coolly detached and very arrogant. I think he’s very smart and knows he’s smart, but as a result doesn’t do his homework.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

First, Rove is misquoting Obama<\/a>; he never said “true patriotism consists of speaking out on the issues.” Second, the right-wing interest in flag lapel pins just isn’t healthy, and ends up backfiring when people realize that the same conservatives whining about lapel pins don’t wear them<\/a> — and neither does their presidential candidate<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And third, to hear Karl Rove, after more than a decade of service to George W. Bush, accuse anyone<\/i> of being “arrogant” and unwilling to “do his homework” is so spectacularly amusing, I’m almost amazed he’s too far gone to appreciate the irony.
\n
\nBut Rove’s praise for Hillary Clinton is almost jarring. He seems to detest Obama, which apparently leads him to respect Clinton even more.<\/p>\n

At different points in the interview, Rove praised Clinton for:<\/p>\n

* the original “3 a.m.” ad, which he called “gutsy”<\/p>\n

* hiring Mark Penn, whom Rove twice described as “a very smart guy”<\/p>\n

* her recent strategy of raising the specter of picking Obama as her running mate<\/p>\n

* and, compared to Obama, her record of having been “around public life a lot longer and has demonstrated, you know, more involvement than he has.”<\/p>\n

Now, when it comes to Rove, it’s easy to dip into over-analysis. Is he praising Clinton because he likes or he fears her? Is he trashing Obama because he’s trying to undermine him, or is this some elaborate plot to help him get the nomination because Rove thinks he’d be easy to beat?<\/p>\n

Frankly, I tend to find this kind of tea-leaf reading a little tiresome, in large part because a) Rove’s strategies are rarely sophisticated; b) Rove isn’t nearly as clever as he thinks he is; and c) Rove, more often than not, is wrong.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, it’s an awfully interesting interview<\/a>. It’s worth taking a look.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Karl Rove sat down with GQ for a surprisingly interesting interview, published online this week, in which the former White House aide makes it pretty clear that he has a grudging respect for Hillary Clinton, whom he holds in relatively high regard, and seems rather disgusted with Barack Obama. At one point during the lengthy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15096\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}