(
I am really hesitant to put this up, but after scouring Dailykos and a few other places for a one-stop-shop on the Rove debacle I discovered that there was absolutely nowhere I could find a beginning to end synopsis on exactly what was said, what it "means", and where the whole thing is going. It seems like having something which can catch someone up who doesn't live constantly on the edge of the 24 hour news cycle would be a good thing. Anyway...)
Hot on the heels of the two
Scapegoat posts Billmon wrote in the last week (if you don't know who Billmon is yet check him out), no less than
Karl Rove himself comes out (full text of speech) and turns the situation from an abstract conspiracy-theory to an in-your-face reality of hate speech aimed at everyday Americans like you and me. Says Rove:
"But perhaps the most important difference between conservatives and liberals can be found in the area of national security. Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 and the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers. In the wake of 9/11, conservatives believed it was time to unleash the might and power of the United States military against the Taliban; in the wake of 9/11, liberals believed it was time to... submit a petition. I am not joking. Submitting a petition is precisely what Moveon.org did. It was a petition imploring the powers that be" to "use moderation and restraint in responding to the... terrorist attacks against the United States."
I don't know about you, but moderation and restraint is not what I felt as I watched the Twin Towers crumble to the earth; a side of the Pentagon destroyed; and almost 3,000 of our fellow citizens perish in flames and rubble.
Moderation and restraint is not what I felt - and moderation and restraint is not what was called for. It was a moment to summon our national will - and to brandish steel.
MoveOn.Org, Michael Moore and Howard Dean may not have agreed with this, but the American people did. Conservatives saw what happened to us on 9/11 and said: we will defeat our enemies. Liberals saw what happened to us and said: we must understand our enemies. Conservatives see the United States as a great nation engaged in a noble cause; liberals see the United States and they see ... Nazi concentration camps, Soviet gulags, and the killing fields of Cambodia.
Has there been a more revealing moment this year than when Democratic Senator Richard Durbin, speaking on the Senate floor, compared what Americans had done to prisoners in our control at Guantanamo Bay with what was done by Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot - three of the most brutal and malevolent figures in the 20th century?
Let me put this in fairly simple terms: Al Jazeera now broadcasts to the region the words of Senator Durbin, certainly putting America's men and women in uniform in greater danger. No more needs to be said about the motives of liberals.
In deference to the guy that told us all it was coming (the new McCarthyism, that is) I'll let Billmon finish off
what this means and where it might be going from here.