{"id":15971,"date":"2008-06-23T15:25:38","date_gmt":"2008-06-23T19:25:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/15971.html"},"modified":"2008-06-23T15:25:38","modified_gmt":"2008-06-23T19:25:38","slug":"rove-picks-the-wrong-metaphor-to-slam-obama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/rove-picks-the-wrong-metaphor-to-slam-obama\/","title":{"rendered":"Rove picks the wrong metaphor to slam Obama"},"content":{"rendered":"

Karl Rove has made it clear on multiple occasions<\/a> that he actively dislikes Barack Obama — if there’s a more helpful testament to the strength of Obama’s character, it doesn’t come to mind — and he continues to make his criticisms of the Democratic candidate more and more personal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

ABC News’ Christianne Klein reports that at a breakfast with Republican insiders at the Capitol Hill Club this morning, former White House senior aide Karl Rove referred to Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, as “coolly arrogant.”<\/p>\n

“Even if you never met him, you know this guy,” Rove said, per Christianne Klein. “He’s the guy at the country club with the beautiful date, holding a martini and a cigarette that stands against the wall and makes snide comments about everyone who passes by.” <\/p>\n

Rove said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., “needs to come right at him.” He referred to the latest Newsweek poll showing Obama with a 15-point lead over McCain as nonsense, though he used a more scatological synonym. Rove said he was heading over to the White House for lunch and a chat with the President, Klein reports.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Andrew Sullivan noted<\/a> that Rove is “revealing more about his own insecurities than Obama’s.” I think that’s certainly true, but it’s worth going even further.<\/p>\n

Of all the metaphors Rove could have used to attack the first credible African-American candidate for the presidency, he had to go with “the guy at the country club”? Seriously? Jake Tapper noted, accurately<\/a>, that Obama “wouldn’t be admitted into many country clubs that members of the Capitol Hill Club frequent.”<\/p>\n

Indeed, this is also surprisingly off-message for Rove.
\n
\nFor months, Rove has sought to characterize Obama as a dangerous outsider who we don’t really know and can’t trust. Everything about him, the argument goes, is “foreign.” The various far-right smears — about Obama’s religion, his family, his name, his patriotism — are all part of the same conservative frame.<\/p>\n

Now, however, Obama’s part of the country-club set? Hanging around with a martini? If I’m not mistaken, Rove is talking about the ultimate insider — which is the opposite of the message Rove was emphasizing up until very recently. Can’t these guys pick one smear and go with it?<\/p>\n

And finally, Greg Sargent notes<\/a> the irony of Rove’s attack.<\/p>\n

It should also be noted, of course, that Rove took a man who actually is<\/i> a country club denizen who makes “snide comments” about others — that would be George W. Bush — and turned him into a regular Joe. Meanwhile, the guy who would struggle for admittance to some of these exclusive enclaves — Obama — is now “the guy at the country club.” Rovian up-is-downism at its finest.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Exactly. Rove’s description sounds spot-on like Bush — right down to the “snide comments<\/a>” he makes about people who pass him by.<\/p>\n

Rove is going to have to do better than this. Usually his ugly attacks aren’t quite this silly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Karl Rove has made it clear on multiple occasions that he actively dislikes Barack Obama — if there’s a more helpful testament to the strength of Obama’s character, it doesn’t come to mind — and he continues to make his criticisms of the Democratic candidate more and more personal. ABC News’ Christianne Klein reports that […]<\/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-15971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15971","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=15971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15971\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}