Rove | The Week

last updated 8 January 2015

Even for Karl Rove, said Joe Conason in Salon.com, it was a low blow. At a fund-raiser in Manhattan not far from the hole where the World Trade Center once stood, the president's political guru told a crowd of cheering Republicans last week that only the GOP believed in standing up to terrorism. 'œConservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 and the attacks and prepared for war,' Rove said. 'œLiberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers.' What 'œa sickening generalization,' said Andrew Sullivan in Andrewsullivan.com. After 9/11, the nation'”liberals included'”united behind President Bush, and nearly every Democrat in Congress endorsed the war in Afghanistan. The war in Iraq, though, was a different matter, and the liberals may have been right. At least three more years of grueling fighting are ahead of us, and the public is getting very restless. By changing the subject back to 9/11, Rove seems to be indicating 'œsome level of panic.'

Boy, did Rove hit a nerve, said Byron York in National Review Online. Liberals deny it now, but the fact is, their leaders balked at going after al Qaida. The founders of MoveOn.org, the Democrats' Internet attack dog, actually circulated a petition after 9/11 calling for restraint, and saying that going to war would 'œonly play into the terrorists' hands.' And don't forget, said the New York Post in an editorial, the Democratic Party's presidential candidate, John Kerry, 'œdeclared terrorism to be a law-enforcement problem,' like prostitution. Filmmaker Michael Moore, 'œthe capo di tutti capi of Democratic crackpots,' had the gall to suggest that America brought the attacks on itself with a reckless foreign policy. Democrats are now demanding that Rove apologize. But why should he? He was right.