CNN: Rove responds to 2000 South Carolina campaign allegation: Says not behind McCain child rumor

[DeepModem Mom]

Thursday, March 15, 2007
Rove responds to 2000 South Carolina campaign allegation

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove sharply dismissed an allegation Thursday that he was behind a 2000 rumor that Sen. John McCain was the father of an illegitimate African-American child.

"That is absolutely not true, and I take offense," Rove said in response to a question during an appearance at Troy University in Troy, Alabama. "If you have any bit of evidence that anybody connected with the Bush campaign was involved in that, you bring it forward, because it is a reckless charge." (Watch Video: Rove confronts critic)

The questioner alleged that Rove, then the chief political strategist for presidential candidate George W. Bush, "helped spread the false story" about McCain, who was Bush's main rival for the 2000 GOP nomination.

In the days leading up to the 2000 South Carolina Republican primary, anonymous McCain opponents had spread rumors that McCain had fathered an illegitimate African-American child. At the same time, Bob Jones University professor Richard Hand wrote a widely circulated email suggesting McCain had children out of wedlock. In fact, McCain and his wife had an adopted daughter from Bangladesh. Hand was a Bush supporter but did not have a role with the Bush campaign.

"Do you think people of South Carolina find it attractive to hear that kind of charge made against John McCain," Rove asked at the Troy University event. "Or do the people of South Carolina respond to it as they should have, 'What a remarkable thing that John and Cindy McCain adopted a child from Asia, took him into their home as an act of compassion and kindness.'"

"The Bush campaign had nothing to do with it, and the Bush campaign endeavored to stamp out those kinds of things because they hurt George Bush and helped John McCain, not the other way around," Rove added. "Either I'm a genius, or I'm an idiot. Only an idiot would spread trash like that and expect to do their candidate any good."

http://www.cnn.com/POLITICS/blogs/politicalticker/2007/03/rove-responds-to-2000-south-carolina.html

LINK TO VIDEO: http://www.cnn.com/video/player/player.html?url=/video/politics/2007/03/15/sot.rove.south.carolina.wsfa

[JI7]

1. fuck them all

they are ALL assholes.

[Joe Bacon]

20. no, they are b-holes

Nobody who is in the White House has what it takes to be an a-hole!

[Catherine Vincent]

2. If Rove wouldn't be such a vindictive liar, he wouldn't be accused of such things.

Cry me a river, Turdblossom!

[AlCzervik]

3. Rove taking a page of out his own playbook, do the crime, then get all full

of fake outrage about how wrong it is and then get all faux indignant when asked if your prints could be lifted off of any of the offending material.

thats second only to Rove doing dirty trick to his own candidates campaign and then blaming the other side.

[dEMOK]

4. Yeah Right...

Just like Rove went after the Swiftboaters :eyes:

[Erika]

5. So who would be behind the dirty tricks on McCain and his family?

Bush/Rove. I can't believe the trash that the Bush team brought out to slander McCain. Everything from his being an enemy of breast cancer funds, to an expose, ugly and dirty against his wife and her problem with prescription drugs.

Rove stamp of approval. When I saw McCain hugging W, I felt they both deserved each other. They disgusted me.

I had given $ to McCain, I'm sorry I did.

[Jawja]

19. Erika,

I gave money to McCain, too, and am very sorry I did. When the swift boaters come after him this time, I think he will get what he deserves. We needed for McCain in the Senate to stand up to the Bush/Cheney criminal government; instead he embraced it (pardon the pun!) and gave it cover.

[AnneD]

26. Bush/Rove smear team...

cut their teeth in the campaign against Ann Richards. I can't even begin to tell you the filthly smut they wispered against her. She had too much class and figured people would never believe that idiotic nonsense. Until she lost. And I'll believe to my dying day that election was rigged too.

[babylonsister]

6. The fact the question was even asked shows progress; and Rove's response

shows how far he'll go to lie. Will the BFEE be as compromising to him? Yea, probably.

[eleny]

7. They lie so easily

[TwilightGardener]

8. Sorry, fatass, we know it was you--of course you're never

going to be connected to it--that's why it worked so well--you contracted it out to a third party like a hit job.

[Imagevision]

9. Rove: Simply lie and deny, the Dems won't do nothing... and it's been true!

[Webster Green]

10. Since he lies about EVERYTHING........that confirms it was him!

But everybody already knew that anyway.

[keopeli]

11. Defensive, are we? A brief re-cap of that S.C. campaign 7 years ago.

So, if accusing McCain of having an illegitimate black child was such an odorous offense by people you didn't know or have anything to do with, why didn't you, Bush, the compassionate conservative, condemn the remarks? Why didn't you take the high-road?

A recap of the South Carolina primaries in 2000 might help us out.

Nothing was too low to rule out. The nadir moment occurred February 3rd when a smiling Bush stood in front of television cameras as a fringe Vietnam veteran, Thomas Burch, denounced McCain as a POW who “came home and forgot us.” Governor Bush knows Burch well. The same Thomas Burch had accused President Bush of abandoning veterans during his administration, but alas, all old wounds must have been healed in time to neutralize McCain’s war hero factor.

Bush allies described McCain as “pro-abortion” and “the fag candidate” (because McCain was the only Republican presidential candidate to meet with the gay Republican men’s group, Log Cabin Republicans).

One particularly offensive missive distributed via the Internet and to the press was from the Christian Fundamentalist Bob Jones University...A professor named Richard Hand wrote that McCain “chose to sire children without marriage,” among other hallucinations.

McCain pulled all broadcast political advertisements critical of Governor George Bush in the last week of the campaign and promised that “I will not take the low road to the highest office in the land.”

Bush kept pouring gasoline onto the fire with ads that said, “John McCain promised a clean campaign, then attacked Governor Bush with misleading ads.”

On the campaign trail, Bush said, “It’s sad, isn’t it? The true nature of John McCain is evidently coming out.”

Bush told CNN after his win that South Carolina voters “responded overwhelmingly for me because I ran a positive campaign, a campaign that clearly enunciated what I want to do.”

CommonDreams.org

[DeepModem Mom]

14. Thanks for this reminder, keopeli --

except that my blood pressure, already elevated just from posting this article, just got even higher! Pure evil, these people.

[keopeli]

18. It's classic Rovian righteous indignation - blame your enemy for exactly what you yourself are doing

I always appreciate your posts, DMMom! Even when they make me cringe ~

Peace

[maddezmom]

17. good link

thanks for the reminder :hi:

[Auntie Bush]

12. God...the man needs help. He lies so much...he believes his own lies.

He's making up his own reality!

[JoFerret]

13. Keeping it stoked

Great that its even coming up. keep them defending and denying.

[SlowDownFast]

15. "Either I'm a genius, or I'm an idiot. "

"Only an idiot would spread trash like that and expect to do to do their candidate any good."

Well, if the shoe fits, Turdblossom...

[spiderpig]

16. KKKarl...

you're a lying sack of (poo).

[City Lights]

21. Ok, Karl. Yuh. Sure.

Whatever you say...:eyes:

Frankly, I'm surprised he was even asked about this.

[tanyev]

22. I had nothing to do with it. I completely delegated that job to Ralph Reed.

"Either I'm a genius, or I'm an idiot. Only an idiot would spread trash like that and expect to do their candidate any good."

But Bush did win South Carolina, didn't he, Karl?

[brentspeak]

23. "...and the Bush campaign endeavored to stamp out those kinds of things"

Yeah? In what way did the Bush campaign "endeavor" to stamp out those kinds of things, Rove? Did Bush denounce the smears made against McCain during the primary, or denounce anyone who was behind them?

He didn't? Then how come you claim "the Bush campaign endeavored to stamp out those kinds of things"? Could it be, Rove, that you're just a fat, pompous liar?

[Zenlitened]

24. Wearing my tinfoil hat today: Does this spur sympathy for McCain...

... at a time when he needs ink, not to mention support, badly?

Timed to coincide with the rollout, once again, of his rusty old "straight talk express" bus?

Dunno. It fits in with the Rove-as-Evil-Genius idea: He plants the question and feigns outrage, takes a mild hit for the benefit of Bush-Bootlicker-in-Chief, McCain.

Thing is... some of the 'genius' seems to have gone out of Rove's 'evil' these days! :D

[NashVegas]

25. I Don't Remember That Rumor. I Do Remember the "Psycho" Rumor ...

Rove most definitely had a hand in. Did anyone ask him about that?

[Supersedeas]

27. either he is a genius or an idiot...so he must be a genius right?