Karl Rove Slams Bloggers

Karl Rove ripped into liberal bloggers at a web politics conference this week, assailing the "angry kooks" on the "nutty fringe of political life" who have seized "inexpensive and easily accessible" platforms to upend public debate. Ever the strategist, Rove also emphasized that he is a "fan of many blogs." So how does he know which ones are good? Apparently blogs affiliated with the liberal netroots are the problem:

My point is not that liberals swear publicly more often than conservatives. That may be true, but that's not my point [...] It is that the netroots often argue from anger rather than reason, and too often, their object is personal release, not political persuasion.

Several people have pointed out the blatant hypocrisy here. Rove is famous for a political career built on the most vitriolic, angry and immoral approach to public affairs. He is an equal opportunity slander operative, smearing John Kerry and Ann Richards with the same intensity as he sabotaged conservative "allies" like John McCain and John DiIulio. But dealing with Rove, there's a political lesson here too.

Karl Rove poses with bloggers at Yahoo's "The Rise of Citizen 2.0" conference on Thursday. Photo credit: Clay Johnson.

Rove's attack fits with the Republicans' long-term strategy to discredit the netroots, marginalize bloggers and pressure Democratic politicians to avoid their own web activists. The idea is to blunt the obvious fundraising, organizing and energizing benefits of liberal web activism by isolating it from Democratic leadership and the progressive establishment in general. That is why Republicans aim to morph liberal Internet activism into a "scandal" whenever possible, from random blog comments to the MoveOn Petraus ad to the feigned outrage over John Edwards' campaign bloggers. In fact, the Edwards dust-up in February traces Rove's new attack quite closely. A Republican operative famous for unethical hardball (Bill Donahue) hypocritically attacks the "vitriol" of bloggers, focusing exclusively on liberals in order to pressure naive Democrats -- not improve public discourse. Then important people grow very "concerned" about an outbreak of "dirty politics" on the left. In February, the bloggers resigned from the campaign; this week, Rove is pushing a broader narrative for the media, not trying to actually get a specific person fired. (For more details, see the Nation comment I wrote about the incident at the time.)

But the real question is whether any Democrats (or reporters) will naively take another self-interested Republican attack at face value. Rove is simply attacking liberal bloggers because they are effective. Deep down, he might even admire their aggressive approach to politics. Ironically, that would be another thing he does not have in common with many Democratic leaders.

UPDATE: Washingtonian reports that during the conference Rove also IM'd with MoveOn.org Washington Director Tom Matzzie, whom he criticized during his remarks: "This is rove and I did take your name in vain [...] Have enjoyed listening to your calls!" 
 It's not clear if Rove was joking about domestic surveillance, referring to MoveOn's political autocalls, or something else.

Comments (22)

1. I didn't think Rove would have wandered too far. Just doin what he do-- shamelessly attack the left for the very thing the right does. Thankfully, The Nation bloggers all know who argues from anger and personal release.

   Posted by MATTMAN at 11/09/2007 @ 4:56pm

2. "Rove is simply attacking liberal bloggers because they are effective."

   Serious....are they?

   I mean they lay claim to 2006, but given the liberal blogs are vehemently ANTI-DLC...and so many moderate to conservative Dems were the ones who won back those Red State districts last November.....does the Left Blogosphere really deserve credit?

   What else? Left-wing blogs are pushing impeachment, and the leadership is burying it in Conyers' committee. They push universal health care/single-payer...and the Top Three (Clinton, Obama, Edwards) aren't pushing it; Kucinich is.

   Fund-raising?...the guy with single biggest pay day for Internet fund-raising is....Ron Paul, a libertarian Republican.

   So, again, willing to be enlightened....what IS "netroots" effective at?

   Posted by Mask at 11/09/2007 @ 4:57pm

3. eff that bloated evil closet log cabiner hypocrite. too much democracy fart blossom. eff you!

   of course liberal bloggers are more effective. they are more literate, better educated, smarter, and a hell of a lot closer to reality than blowhard lying neocon shits...

   eff karl rove back to the hell rock out from under which that lying dough boy crawled. should be tried for any number of crimes (including treason) and hanged.

   eff karl effin rove!

   Posted by ibbleblibble at 11/09/2007 @ 5:03pm

4. The liberal bloggers are at least representative of a bloc of voters; regardless of whom they claim to support, the majority will vote democratic in the end. I would bet that most of Ron Paul's internet supporters will fall back in line with the democrats as well come November of 08.

   Posted by MATTMAN at 11/09/2007 @ 5:19pm

5. Posted by IBBLEBLIBBLE 11/09/2007 @ 5:03pm

   Proving Rove's point...huh IBB?!

   Posted by ACook at 11/09/2007 @ 5:54pm

6. Hey Karl...Plunger here.

   You are fucked.

   http://plungerspeaks.blogspot.com

   It's all over but the convictions, asshole.

   We know everything.

   http://letsibeledmondsspeak.blogspot.com/2007/11/sibel-edmonds-case-unte llable-story-of.html

   Posted by plunger at 11/09/2007 @ 6:57pm

7. http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/2007/11/92600.html

   BREAKING: Unelectable Hillary and Giuliani Tied to 9-11 Dancing Israelis

   By Tom Heneghan

   The indictment of Rudy Giuliani's stooge, former New York Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik is just the tip of the iceberg. Kerik operated as chief facilitator, along with then MEGA MOSSAD Assistant U.S. Attorney General under the Bush Administration Michael Chertoff, in allowing the 9/11 "Dancing Israelis" to escape FBI interrogation and be allowed a free trip back to Israel.

   Posted by plunger at 11/09/2007 @ 6:58pm

8. eff karl rove back to the hell rock out from under which that lying dough boy crawled. should be tried for any number of crimes (including treason) and hanged.

   eff karl effin rove!

   Posted by IBBLEBLIBBLE 11/09/2007 @ 5:03pm

   and here's hopin' that when they do hang his treasonous blobulance they make sure the rope is long enough to assure his fat effin head pops off spraying his fellow NEOCONvicts with his blood immediately prior to their head poppin' hangin'!

   Proving Rove's point...huh IBB?!

   Posted by ACOOK 11/09/2007 @ 5:54pm

   oh hey ACOOK. how you doing? notice how i avoided using the "f word"?

   um yeah, sure...what you said...i would never wish explosive decapitation on karl effin rove!

   ;)

   Posted by ibbleblibble at 11/09/2007 @ 7:18pm

9. Posted by MATTMAN 11/09/2007 @ 5:19pm

   So they threw 4.3 Million at Paul....as a lark????

   Posted by Mask at 11/09/2007 @ 7:49pm

10. Spoken like a true Turd Blossom.

    Posted by crabwalk at 11/09/2007 @ 8:27pm

11. eff that bloated evil closet log cabiner hypocrite. too much democracy fart blossom. eff you!

    of course liberal bloggers are more effective. they are more literate, better educated, smarter, and a hell of a lot closer to reality than blowhard lying neocon shits...

    eff karl rove back to the hell rock out from under which that lying dough boy crawled. should be tried for any number of crimes (including treason) and hanged.

    eff karl effin rove!

    Posted by IBBLEBLIBBLE 11/09/2007 @ 5:03pm

    Bloody beauty Ibbie. Rational, persuasive, beautifully expressed and dispassionate. Every American should have a bloody liberal education.

    (psst! just between you and me what's the effin topic?)

    Posted by lrjones4 at 11/10/2007 @ 05:41am

12. Posted by LRJONES4 11/10/2007 @ 05:41am

    i thought it one of my better works...did you see part 2?

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 11/10/2007 @ 09:33am

13. Karl Rove you horrible anti-American scum, you been reading my posts. Karl Rove you Conservative, you tipped me off, you have given me encouragement to post more angry rants against the harm your Republicans want to keep doing to America.

    Now, Karl Rove has tipped off his opponents - the patriotic Americans. If Karl Rove had thought that angry rants were hurting the patriotic side - if Karl Rove had thought that showing healthy emotions towards Conservative Republican idiocy - then Karl Rove might have been giving me mis-information with his encouraging comments.

    HOWEVER, the Republican blogs are on full tilt, "Liberal, Liberal, Socialist, Liberal - Liberals support Hitler - Liberals support terrorists - Liberals celebrate when American troops die - Liberals". IF KARL ROVE FELT THAT ANGER WAS NEGATIVE STRATEGY, HE WOULD COUNSEL HIS OWN SIDE TO STOP THEIRS.

    Karl Rove because of his Conservative stupidity, in a whining fit, has tipped off our side that more anger is good for us.

    Posted by conshame at 11/10/2007 @ 11:08am

14. Karl -- if you had conducted your treasonous acts under the auspices of any other government on this planet other than perhaps Joe Stalin's, you would be minimally in jail for life or maximally hanging from a rope. You are lucky to have the well connected friends in high places that you do. Take your poison elsewhere -- you are relegated to historical status as a blight on democracy.

    Posted by OneVote at 11/10/2007 @ 11:33am

15. Posted by MASK 11/09/2007 @ 4:57pm

    You missed your calling if you are not a corporate attorney that defends clients against product liability claims. Your standard line is that if causation can't be linearly proven to a statistical certainty, then the clients actions had NO contributory impact. Fortunately, that is not the standard for causation in most jurisdictions.

    Posted by canaar at 11/10/2007 @ 6:17pm

16. Posted by CANAAR 11/10/2007 @ 6:17pm

    I'm sorry, CANAAR, if I don't just gullibly swallow bloggers telling me that "bloggers have an enormously effective impact".

    Prove it and I might. But so far, what's their batting average? Dean failed....though Left-of-DLC-Center they didn't get THEIR guys on the ballots back last November...and the guy making the most money "off the Net", true, is an anti-war canidate...but he's the LIBERTARIAN anti-war candidate....not Dennis Kucinich.

    So again....are they "effective"? Effective at promoting themselves as "effective" maybe, but anything else?

    Posted by Mask at 11/10/2007 @ 7:51pm

17. Posted by MASK 11/10/2007 @ 7:51pm

    Effective as a force moving the national dialogue sufficiently to the left providing a climate leading to the party shift in the house and senate?

    If so, that is a pretty substantial amount of movement in the face of the thousand year reich that DeLay, Rove & Co. had built.

    It's pretty easy to defecate where and upon whatever one pleases. Yet, the substantive addition gratuitously provided tends to obscure rather than illuminate in my experience.

    Posted by canaar at 11/10/2007 @ 10:03pm

18. Posted by CANAAR 11/10/2007 @ 10:03pm

    CAN, again, doesn't add up.

    The Blogosphere Left is the Kucinich Left, or maybe a little further!. They didn't win in 2006....guys like Jim Webb, pro-gun as they come, did. Or even Sherrod "I hate NAFTA, but don't mind torture" Brown. Those weren't "Blog Dems" that won, but mainstream or even DLC Dems.

    As far as "moving the dialogue"...what's the "dialogue" on the Blogosphere Left now? Impeachment, right?

    And what did the Dems in Congress just do to that?....buried it in Committee.

    Some "effectiveness"!

    Posted by Mask at 11/11/2007 @ 12:59pm

19. Oh, and did I forget to mention Darling of the Blogs....Ned Lamont?

    (well, he's easily forgettable)

    Posted by Mask at 11/11/2007 @ 1:00pm

20. Posted by MASK 11/11/2007 @ 1:00pm

    The noise on the left for a change, is nothing more than a companion to a 25 year drumbeat on the right that moved the center markedly and disastrously toward the right. I

    mpeachment translates to the easier and less upsetting to watchers of reality TV, as vote of no party confidence evidenced by the movement of 40% of the public away from the current regime.

    For someone who preaches pragmatism as loudly and repetitively as you do, you blithely ignore the pragmatic impact on the public dialogue of a newly invigorated and counterbalancing left (MoveOn and the fall of DeLay for example) that had been moribund for 20 years.

    Posted by canaar at 11/11/2007 @ 11:59pm

21. Posted by MASK 11/09/2007 @ 4:57pm

    You blog here as much as anyone, yet are among the first to pour cold water on the value of the exercise.

    That dichotomy is but one of the reasons that so many suspect your agenda.

    Posted by drhammer at 11/12/2007 @ 09:00am

22. Oh, and by the way, KARL...

    ...From a generally civilized and articulate liberal blogger, a very thoughtful

    FUCK YOU.

    And if you ever find yourself in my neighborhood, do yourself a favor and watch the "walk/don't walk" signs very closely...

    Posted by drhammer at 11/12/2007 @ 09:09am