Steve Gilliard absolutely plasters the Rove apologists:
As a New Yorker, I find this the equivalent of blood libel. (You know, the lie that the Jews used Christian babies blood for matzoh). No one asked what party 343 firemen belonged to when they died, or the 34 policemen. No one asked what party nine members of the 69th Regiment, New York City's own infantry regiment with a lineage going back to WW I, were when they were killed in Iraq, two of whom were immigrants, one a Pakistani muslim. No one asked and no one cared.
To say that New Yorkers, who are 5-1 Democrats, are shirking from the service of their country is an insult to them and their service. No one asked for party enrollment when they took their oath and it is wrong to suggest that it matters now. Many New Yorkers, and Californians as well, have died in the service of their country in Iraq and Afghanistan. [...]
Let me explain something birdman: I smelled the dead in my windows for a week after 9/11. While you sat back and worried about some Sikh blowing up your mall, every time I took a breath, burning flesh and paper filled my nose. Every day, for a year, I opened the paper to read about yet another funeral. On nice, sunny days, I get reminded of 9/11. [...]
So don't fucking lecture me about defending the people who protect my city. You don't drive by the firehouse memorials on every goddamn firehouse in the city. You don't see the stories about fucked up families left behind. You live in a fantasy world where big strong men kill the brown people and make you feel like a man. We know what they did for us far better than you ever will, no matter how much you pretend to understand. You don't. And you never will and you never want to. [...]
Not that you care. You sit in your home and cheer the confused teenagers in Irqq dying for your ideas and you don't lift a finger to help them. You don't volunteer, do you? Not at the local VA, or military hospital. Nope. You just sit there, a big old coward, cheering on children as they get crippled in the quest to make the Islamic Republic of Iraq. A fight you will not join, either.
To begin to understand the New York Democrats' reaction to all of this, read the whole thing.
And you should be aware that Mayor Bloomberg still won't condemn Rove's statements. Republican governor Pataki stands solidly behind Rove too. And NJ GOP candidate Doug Forrester, on whose behalf Rove was fundraising during this trip, doesn't have a problem with it either. Steve
has phone numbers and email addresses, for those of you that want to take it up with them...