Let's look at classic Rove disinfo techniques

[Stephanie]

Planted a bug in his own office, blamed it on his opponent.

Fed stories to Hatfield about Bush's cocaine conviction, then completely discredited Hatfield. Cocaine stories were discredited in the process and never mentioned again.

Of course there has been no proven connection between Rove and the "forged" Killian docs, but it fits the pattern. Put genuine info in the hands of a vulnerable messenger, then kill the messenger. Presto, the info is disappeared in the process.

Any others?

[tk2kewl]

1. why the hell didnt he go to jail for that bug thing?

i never understood that

you cant just report fake crimes

[McCamy Taylor]

11. dont forget the bush debate tapes that got mailed to gore

[Stephanie]

14. A classic

And I believe the advisor who received them had to recuse himself? Is that correct?

[mak3cats]

2. This was one of my first posts...

(I would have referenced the thread but the archives are currently unavailable for searching.)

Can anyone tell me what the sources were for the Republicans’ assertion that the “morals issue” was the reason for Bush’s unexpected “mandate?” It seems odd that with all the pre-election scrutinizing of voter sentiments (poll after poll after yet another poll) that this issue never came up as a priority before? (And, if I’m not mistaken, current polls show that the issue has sunk again to being a non-priority.)

That means either (a) the “morals issue” spiked as an area of concern for a large segment of the voting population on Election Day only, or (b) the story was conceived and ready to be trotted out as an explanation for the unexpected election results. (And, of course, the sheep in the mainstream media picked it up without question and ran with it, as usual.)

As (a) seems unlikely to me, let’s assume for the sake of argument that it’s (b). Look what the strategy has done for the GOP:

1) It offers a quick sop to their base, leading the group to believe that their strength is growing.

2) It demoralizes the opposition. Look at all the hand-wringing going on in the Democratic Party. “We need to focus on bridging the cultural divide.” “We need to talk values, values, values.” What better than to get the Democrats to expend energies and resources to fix a problem that’s been, if not entirely invented, certainly exaggerated?

3) It gave the ever-lazier (and ever more corporate-controlled) news media a reason not to investigate anomalous election results.

And, last but absolutely not least,

4) With all the attendant media attention on the topic (even NPR has devoted several hours this past week showcasing religious figures), it has planted the notion in the minds of a generally unquestioning public that Republicans are morally superior to Democrats. And (hence my opening statement) this makes it all that harder for the allegations of vote fraud to be accepted; would such a “moral” group actually (gasp!) CHEAT to win an election?

[truehawk]

8. Response to an exit poll that lumped Moral Values with Iraq

Go ask TruthIsAll and stand back. He has the best scoop on the exit poll thing.

[Helga Scow Stern]

15. KKKarl also told the Republican Governors' klavern that they had a mandate

because of the minority vote. Now it has been shown that Latinos voted for Kerry by Latino exit poll conductors.

He tries to coordinate his lies, but arrogance always brings people down. That's usually how the smartest serial killers get caught.

[jsamuel]

3. The thing about rove is that they are always remarkable simple

Act like a bug was planted, or send a paper to a guy and tell him it is authentic (without the source). Allways sooo simple.

[Skip Intro]

4. A movement swells, a sparkly bandwagon appears, "gets ahead of"

the push, momentum herded toward it until it can be spun to define the movement, then is exposed to be something so lacking in substance that the entire movement, and any amount of real evidence, is tainted beyond any future credibility.

Over and over again.

[Stephanie]

5. exactly

Great summary.

[pleiku52cab]

6. the flawed messenger gambit seems to be KKKKarls favorite

recently. Watch his minions jump all over Curtis as a 'tin foil mad hatter' who is only trying to sell books.

[Zan_of_Texas]

23. weapons inspector Scott Ritter was smeared too.

Didn't find weapons in Iraq, so his personal life was immediately smeared.

And, hey, did we forget Joe Wilson -- he debunked the yellowcake uranium story, and whoa, his wife is outed as undercover CIA. By whom? Well, we're still waiting, aren't we.

[merh]

26. Don't forget the smears of Roger Clark.

But if you want to have fun, go to the thread at the link below and read the complaint filed in 2002 with the FEC naming Feeney, Yang and NASA. Funny how those names come up.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x126092

(Oh yeah, Feeney's counsel before the FEC was none other than Ginsberg.)

[Smirking_Chimp]

7. exit poll snafu

How about sending out the message "when you go in that voting booth, don't let your family or friends influence how you really feel." the night before the election, and having everyone on their side saying "I don't trust the exit polling! People lie about who they vote for." giving them enough cover to defend against the voter fraud.

[truehawk]

9. What was the Proof the memos were "fake"?

Somehow I missed it.
I saw a jave animation that preported to show spacing and font, but did nothing of the kind.
I overlayed the two and the finals on Times Roman did not align.
There was a uneven base line, and there were a couple of different sizes of a, which puzzled me. But I have yet to find a computer font that matches, so Just what WAS the proof that the memos were fake now?????

[Stephanie]

13. No such proof, that I'm aware of

And everyone involved testified that whether the docs were genuine or not, they DID reflect Killian's true sentiments as he expressed them at the time.

[Clark2008]

17. And, yet, everyone thinks that

Dan Rather and his producers lied regarding the report.

The documents were phony, but the sentiments were true and backed up by real life people. But, everyone thinks the whole story was wrong. Why? Because the press hasn't clarified it.

What we need is a public relations expert just for the party.

I can be as mean and sneaky as KKKarl... and I look a lot better (and am tons more healthy). :P

[truehawk]

20. Again what proof was ever offered that the docs were fake?

I looked at a bunch of font and never found anything like that "a". Their spaceing thing with the animation did not work if you tried to replicate what the guy said he had done.

Did anyone find the font? Did I photoshop it wrong, do it wrong? or we just plain out BLUFFED??

And now they are going to bluff us out of the presidency AGAIN, and our jobs, health, air, water, peice of mind, VOTE< COUNTRY, DEMOCRACY and FREEDOM. OUT BLUFFED!!!

[dargondogon]

27. They were faked

I'm sorry, but as soon as I
saw them I knew they were
faked. And it really puz-
zled me why Rather didn't no-
tice, considering he'd used
both typewriters and com-
puters in his career.

The best evidence is the lack
of word breaks at the end of
lines in the memos. Evident-
ly Mr. Rather doesn't remem-
ber what we used to do when
we reached the end of our pa-
per back before computers
broke the lines for us.

Worse, these fakes were in-
tended to be discovered.
Look at this font, the
one that shows up while
you're typing in the mes-
sage window. A faker deter-
mined not to get caught
would have used a type-
writer font like this one
instead of the most com-
mon font available in word
processors and computers.

By the way, when comparing
fonts, print out the document.
Printed fonts are slightly
different than screen fonts.

Killian's typist called them
fake but accurate. That's
the perfect signature of a
Rove operation.

[truehawk]

10. And he has a lot of people so defensive that they eat their own fellows.

[Jack Bone]

12. Could he be tied into...

The Toldeo Democratic Headquaters Break-In this year?

Hmmm..time may tell...

[kk897]

18. Or maybe the Republican HQ break-in

Check this out:

Clipped from http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/26/politics/campaign/26breakin.html?pagewanted=print&position= Wednesday, October 27, 2004 10:53:01 AM:

Republicans Claim Democrats Are Behind Office Attacks
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

Citing incidents of violence at Bush campaign offices around the country, Republicans are asserting Democratic partisans have deliberately tried to intimidate voters, potentially storing ammunition for future arguments about the fairness of the election.

Yesterday, the Bush campaign provided a list of more than 40 examples it said had occurred since July, including the burglary from campaign offices of several items: two laptop computers in Seattle; a banner in Thousand Oaks, Calif.; petty cash in Spokane, Wash.; as well as break-ins last Friday in both Flagstaff, Ariz., and Cincinnati.

(snip)

The Bush campaign is much more focused on the issue. It has set up a hot line to collect information about any examples of "intimidation or harassment" of Republican voters or "destruction of Bush-Cheney property."

A group of 50 Republicans in the House led by Representative Tom Feeney of Florida sent a letter on Oct. 7 to Attorney General John Ashcroft suggesting the existence of "a plan to intimidate volunteers who were supporting their candidate" and requesting an investigation.

[SoCalDemGrrl]

34. Tom Feeney's name sure seems to be popping up on a lot of threads..

Maybe someone should start a FEENEY THREAD. This guy is looking more "interesting" by the minute.

[kk897]

16. In "Bush's Brain"...

it says that Rove did this thing when he was a College Republican. He broke into a Dem's campaign headquarters and stole letterhead. Then he put out a release on it that invited a bunch of hippies (it was the early 70s) and homeless shelter patrons to a fundraiser (or some other important function for this candidate). When all these fringy types showed up, there was chaos.

Sure it was almost a practical joke, and he was reprimanded for it, but it brought him to the attention of Poppy Bush, and the rest is history.

(Please forgive me if the particulars are a little off... I don't have such a great memory).

The stealing letterhead thing is what made me realize that he was obviously setting Rather up on the memos thing.

I thought the upshot of that incident was that the memos CBS had in hand may or may not be genuine, but that the content of them was accurate according to all sorts of other testimony given by people who knew Bush then, commanders, etc.

It wouldn't surprise me if Madsen's famous check was a Rove move, and he was almost taken in by it, then saw through it.

So common threads: Discredit the messenger. Produce bogus documentation that looks official. The truth is put out there in a package of disinformation.

So I guess we could start looking at the people who are being discredited lately (perhaps even a criminal past revealed, a la Hatfield) and look at their stories a little more closely.

Just a thought.

[truehawk]

22. Please see my post up thread, if the Memos were a Rove setup

What proof was there? other than Bluff?

Nope WE let them BLUFF THEIR WAY OUT OF IT.

And we let a good man down.



Lord if someone had made 19 billion min on insider trading on tenets of a building destroyed by terrorists while the interceptor wings were stood down, during a Democratic Presidency, what would the hue and cry have been?

[kk897]

24. Rove and co. don't need any kind of proof at this point, it seems

in order to be believed by the credulous Redumblicans.

[glitch]

19. None of Rove's tricks would work without a complicit media.

With their collaboration, even his most sophomoric tricks are given a pass.
That's why he doesn't have to think of anything new.
He makes me sick, but the collaborators make me sicker.
:puke:

[dargondogon]

38. They're more timid than we can imagine

One story recently suggested that Karl Rove was on the phone Nov. 2, urging Tom Brokaw to declare W the winner. A real journalist would have put the jack ass on the air and let us all hear it.

[Razorback_Democrat]

21. We need to keep this thread kicked

as I believe that after tomorrow's hearings begin, the MSM will start paying attention and the Rovian media (RW) will be in full swing.

That's the other thing, he's got his own mouthpieces in Limbaugh, Hannity, and others on talk radio and on Facist News Network

[merh]

29. Do you know that the weed that would be king's admin calls

those members of the media that get to fly with them or get the coverage as "earned media"? On the georgewbush.org site (satire site) can be found the dead letter files. They are emails that idiots working for the weed's campaign mistakenly sent to the satire site's catch all mail box by mistake. (instead of typing the email address as [e-mail], they typed it as a .org)

One of the emails has attached to it the "earned media list" which provides the information regarding what the shrub's campaign would be doing on a given day. If you piss them off, you don't get to know what they are doing and you definitely don't get a seat on the press plane.

[dargondogon]

25. Printed hateful flyer about his own guy

I think it was Sci American that profiled him before election, reported that in a small race early in his career, Rove hand delivered a hateful flyer against his own candidate on doorsteps late one night. Of course, voters blamed the oppponent for the obviously false accusations Rove printed in the flyer. Rove's candidate won.

[New Earth]

28. beautiful

:puke:

[Stephanie]

30. Rove doesn't stray from his M.O.

So why doesn't somebody catch him in the act?

[rehema]

31. Legend of Rove as "Evil Genius" dates back to 1973

The legend of Rove as "evil genius" dates all the way back to 1973, with a Washington Post story that appeared after the Watergate break-in, reporting that Rove had taught "dirty tricks" to college Republicans. According to Bad Boy, a biography of Lee Atwater, these included sifting through opponents' garbage to gather intelligence. The RNC chairman, the elder George Bush, conducted a month-long investigation and cleared Rove, which helps to explain Rove's career-long loyalty to the family. Another story in Bad Boy—Rove acknowledges that this one is true—tells how Rove had once stolen an Illinois state treasurer candidate's letterhead and put out flyers for a party that offered "free beer, free food, girls, and a good time."

But these were mere preludes to the real stuff of Texas political legend brought up in 1991 during a state Senate confirmation hearing for (former Republican Texas Governor Bill) Clements' nomination of Rove as a regent for East Texas State University. A previous Rove nomination, during Clements' first term, as a regent for Texas Woman's University, had been rejected by the Senate on the grounds that Rove was "disruptive" and "abrasive."

To be a member of the East Texas
State University Board of
Regents for a term
to expire February 15,
1995: Martha H. Whitehead,
1908 North Fourth Street,
Longview, Texas 75601. Ms.
Whitehead will be filling
the unexpired term of
Karl C. Rove of Austin
who was rejected by the
Senate.
http://texinfo.library.unt.edu/texasregister/text/1991/0830.txt

[reality_bites]

32. Maybe Rove is a bad guy, but...

... he would have to be superman to be involved in the number of conspiracys he is charged with on DU. Honestly, when someone says "Rove" on DU, I stop listening.

[New Earth]

33. hmmm

[txindy]

35. Hey, Faye

When I'm not interested in a subject, I don't seek out the threads addressing it and post in them. A lot. Do you? Didn't think so. I wouldn't waste my time. Weird.

I think I'll go read in our favorite forum/group for a while. Clear my head. Plan a birthday greeting. ;)

[New Earth]

36. yup, and a happy birthday to someone special

:crazy:

[boi1946]

37. Found another one...

Rove was in Washington as leader of "College Republican" organization 1971--1973, also worked on re-election campaign for Nixon. John O'Neill, of Swift Boat Liars, was also a member of "College Republicans", and Nixon was so pleased with him after debating JK that he stayed on for awhile and also worked on campaign. They had to have known one another. And O'Neill had carried a grudge for JK for a long time. Don't know if Rove put it into motion, but sure is suspicious...

[Quakerfriend]

39. Hey, does anyone remember

the terrorist threat that appeared 2 days before the Bin Laden tape came out- just prior to the election??? Dkos had photos from the video of the guy, supposedly an American terrorist speaking in Arabic....Anyway, DKos compared the photos of the guy to KKKRove and they looked identical---right down to his glasses!! It was quickly overlooked as soon as the BIn Laden tape appeared. I swear it was Karl himself!

[New Earth]

41. i remember the video

dont' remember exactly what he looked like. i figured even at the time it was put out just to instill some fear before the election.

[Democrat Dragon]

40. I heard KKKarl Rove used marketting techniques

like those used by big corporations. I've seen some stuff here on DU about using demographics and other marketting strategies ofr campaigns.

BTW, where's the link to those KKKarl Rove look-alike terrorist-guy pictures?

[Quakerfriend]

42. I'll see if I can find it

[AmerDem]

43. you nailed it

That is Rove overworked technique. Makes you wonder why the hell couldn't the Dems keep pace with this 1 trick pony.