Lest we forget -- The Rove Treatment

[krkaufman]

The single interaction described in Matt Cooper's released email is not the sole source of information on the amoral biped known as "Rove." Recall this passage from Ron Suskind's January 2003 Esquire article...

...

Eventually, I met with Rove. I arrived at his office a few minutes early, just in time to witness the Rove Treatment, which, like LBJ’s famous browbeating style, is becoming legend but is seldom reported. ... I squeezed into a chair near the open door to Rove’s modest chamber, my back against his doorframe.

Inside, Rove was talking to an aide about some political stratagem in some state that had gone awry and a political operative who had displeased him. I paid it no mind and reviewed a jotted list of questions I hoped to ask. But after a moment, it was like ignoring a tornado flinging parked cars. "We will fuck him. Do you hear me? We will fuck him. We will ruin him. Like no one has ever fucked him!" As a reporter, you get around—curse words, anger, passionate intensity are not notable events—but the ferocity, the bellicosity, the violent imputations were, well, shocking. This went on without a break for a minute or two. Then the aide slipped out looking a bit ashen, and Rove, his face ruddy from the exertions of the past few moments, looked at me and smiled a gentle, Clarence-the-Angel smile. "Come on in." And I did. And we had the most amiable chat for a half hour. ...

... In any event, it’s clear, when I think of my encounter with Rove, why this particular old friend of his, and scores of others—many of whom spoke of the essential good nature of this man who was a teammate on some campaign or other—don’t want their names mentioned, ever. Just like Rove’s mates on the current team—the one running the free world—who go numb at the thought of talking frankly, for attribution, about him. These are powerful people, confident and consequential, who suffer gaze aversion when I mention his name. No doubt they’ve had extended exposure to the two Karls I saw that day last spring.

...

January 1, 2003
Why Are These Men Laughing?
Esquire, January 2003. Reprinted with permission

http://www.ronsuskind.com/newsite/articles/archives/000032.html

The "Wilson's wife" comment during Rove's conversation with Matt Cooper needs to be seen as what it was... not the whole story or evidence of Karl Rove outing a CIA covert operative, but just one action in an overarching strategy of tainting Wilson's NYTimes editorial and credibility, and, in Rove's own words, to "fuck him!... like no one has ever fucked him!"

[cthrumatrix]

1. he meant..."we will Cheney him"

[UCSBLiberalCat53]

2. Why you never hear anything from the religious right about the f word...

when Republicans use it. Don't you realize that it's family values in play? When Republicans say the f word, it becomes a glorious paean to the heavens! When Democrats say it, it becomes the very words of Satan himself:

When Democrats use it, it's Power Word: Kill or Power Word: Treason.

Democrats need to go after this bastard and to use his own words "fuck him!...like no one has ever fucked him!