Rove Tries To Rewrite History: Claims WH ‘Opposed’ Politicizing Pre-War Iraq Vote

[babylonsister]

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/11/22/rove-lies-iraq-war-vote/

Rove Tries To Rewrite History: Claims WH ‘Opposed’ Politicizing Pre-War Iraq Vote

Last night on The Charlie Rose Show, former Bush political adviser Karl Rove claimed that he was “opposed” to holding the pre-war Iraq just ahead of the 2002 elections. “The administration was opposed to voting on it in the fall of 2002,” Rove said. He stated that his upcoming book will argue that the administration did not want to schedule an Iraq war vote prior to the 2002 elections:

ROSE: But you were opposed to the vote.

ROVE: It happened. We don’t determine when the Congress vote on things. The Congress does.

ROSE: You wish it hadn’t happened at that time. You would have preferred it did not happen at that time.

ROVE: That’s right.

Watch it/read transcript at link~

Recall, the House and the Senate voted on whether to authorize war against Iraq in October 2002, just a few weeks prior to the 2002 elections.

Rove’s claim is utterly dishonest and flat-out false. In Sept. 2002, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD) asked President Bush to delay the vote on the Iraq war:

“I asked directly if we could delay this so we could depoliticize it. I said: ‘Mr. President, I know this is urgent, but why the rush? Why do we have to do this now?’ He looked at Cheney and he looked at me, and there was a half-smile on his face. And he said: ‘We just have to do this now.’”

While some Democrats — particularly Rep. Dick Gephardt (D-MO) — were arguing that it was “imperative” that Congress vote immediately to authorize war, had the White House wanted to delay the vote until after the 2002 elections, they would have found a great deal of support. Here’s what a few key leaders were saying at the time:

Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL): “It would be a severe mistake for us to vote on Iraq with as little information as we have. This would be a rash and hasty decision.”

Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA): “I do not believe the decision should be made in the frenzy of an election year.”

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA): “I know of no information that the threat is so imminent from Iraq” that Congress cannot wait until January to vote on a resolution.

But Karl Rove and President Bush weren’t interested in delaying the vote. Rather, the administration actively politicized it. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said, “Delaying a vote in Congress would send the wrong message.” President Bush explicitly told Congress to “get the issue done as quickly as possible“:

My answer to the Congress is, they need to debate this issue and consult with us, and get the issue done as quickly as possible. It’s in our national interests that we do so. I don’t imagine Saddam Hussein sitting around, saying, gosh, I think I’m going to wait for some resolution.

On Sept. 11, 2002, administration officials briefed Congress on Iraq, with the goal of persuading them to schedule a vote to authorize military action. And the administration’s congressional allies were clear on why they wanted to rush the war vote. “People are going to want to know, before the elections, where their representatives stand,” said Rep. Thomas M. Davis (R-VA.), chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. “This could be the vote of the decade, so why wait?”

[catmandu57]

1. How long before this fucker is exposed for the idiot he is

by his own incoherent ramblings and fictionalizations, revisionism, justifying, and just plain stupidity. He's another loser dropout and young enough to pay a long time for his treason.

[Cha]

3. As long as it takes

for the corporatemediawhores to implode on their own petard.

[Cha]

2. We knew rove was going to

get on there and LIE, DENY, LIE, DENY..and ol charlie didn't call 'im on anything?

rove is scumsucking invertebrate that the m$$$$$$$$$$$$m is resusitating AGAIN and we are left here on the net.

[CJCRANE]

4. Another "Rove retcon".

"Retroactive continuity or retcon is the deliberate changing of previously established facts".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retcon

[peacetalksforall]

5. Observing Rove, he always took one issue and hung three or five

other issues off of it so that there would be a free ride or something covered up - he dealt in multiplies of benefits from one thing that held the focus.

So I say he may be able to say he was opposed because he remembers one of his other agendas wrapped into one - the timeing might not have been right for the sub-agenda item so he thinks he's telling the truth.

But, from a guy who can't even tell the truth to keep out of legal trouble, why even give him this consideration. OK, I won't. He has made a mess of living as a human.

[leeman67]

6. Of course. It used to be that those who re-wrote history would

wait until 100 years or so after that history occured. Nowadays they re-write that history the very next day, because they know the media and the average "Joe Public" is so attention deficient that they're more likely to believe Fox News talking heads than they are their own lying eyes and ears.