Poor Karl Rove is feeling picked on again. All he wants to do is receive millions in secret donations to lie about Democrats, without feeling aggravation about pesky concepts like "transparency" and "disclosure." Is that so wrong?
Ryan J. Reilly reports today that Rove's comically-dishonest American Crossroads is facing pressure from state treasurers, which want to make "hedge funds that manage state pension funds disclose donations" to super PACs, including, presumably, Rove's.
This predictably makes Rove feel like a persecuted victim ... along the lines of the NAACP in the segregationist South.
For those who can't watch clips online, here's what the former Bush/Cheney strategist presented as a defense for Fox News viewers:
"In the 1940s and 50s, a number of states attorneys general attempted to force a particular 501(c)4 to disclose its donors -- the purpose was to intimidate people into not giving to that organization.
"The group was the NAACP -- which is a 501(c)4 -- has a 501(c)4 and does not disclose donors. That effort failed, in fact a Supreme Court in a 1954 case general held the right of organizations like that not to make their donors' names public.
"Let's be honest what this is about. This is about a group of people on the left who have used this vehicle, 501(c)4, to run advertising and to run attacks on Republicans for years, who now object when Republicans began to duplicate their tactics and they want to intimidate people into not giving to these conservative efforts, and I think it's shameful. I think it's a sign of their fear of democracy, and it's interesting that they have antecedents and the antecedents are a bunch of segregationist attorneys general trying to shut down the NAACP. It goes to the base emotions and base philosophy behind most of this."
So, in Rove's little morality tale, he's the NAACP battling segregationists, and the liberals who don't want corporations using Rove to buy Americans elections are the white supremacists.
That Rove was able to say all of this with a straight face was not at all comforting. That Rove sees himself as some kind of victim is nearly as troubling.
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Poor Karl rove can't bully his way into American democracy quite the way he used to. I mean, all he wants to do is take barely-legal advantage of a gaping loophole in our campaign finance regulations to compile hundreds of millions of dollars in secret donations from anonymous billionaires, corporations, and possibly foreign entities and then flood that money back into our electoral process via false and misleading attack smears. That's it! Rove needs to taker a moment and read our Constitution. He would find zero mentions of super-PACs, 501c's, or anonymous campaign contributions... http://www.sunstateactivist.org
So he wants to do what the Democrats have been doing for years?
He must be a scum bag.
Never happened.
It's a common Republican tactic: when they want to do something shady, they give themselves cover by claiming that Democrats did it first. It goes back at least to Nixon. He persuaded himself that the only reason he lost to Kennedy in 1960 was that the Democrats played a lot of electoral dirty tricks, and that gave him permission to play a lot of dirty tricks in 1968 and 1972 (which then blew up in his face in the form of Watergate).
This is no different and it's absurd on it's face. Rove's prettied-up slush fund is a consequence of Citizens United, which was a gift from the Robert's Court to the 'conservative' movement. Rove is insane if he actually expects people to believe it possible that Democrats could have had a group like American Crossroads before Citizens United was handed down. His slush fund is not a response to anything other than the right's desire to have overwhelming force in American politics, media and culture.
Where was the lie?
Once again, the liberal campaign tactic, if you can't discount the story, distract the listener by attacking the messenger.
In order for it to be a lie, all of this (according to you) coming from state treasurer's who were in cohoots with the liberal Democrats.
Please provide links to those state treasurers.
I don't care about the legal aspects of this, whether Rove wins or loses. But did he really compare his organization to the NAACP of the 1940's?
*Jaw agape* I...I...I...never mind.
Rove is a punk a** punk propaganda machine. He's the lowest of the low...
Would only that you were correct. Alas, there are more depths to human nature than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
Karl Rove. Or, as I call him, the man who gave us the worst eight years of our lives.
AWWW! Poor widdle Karl. The liberals are picking on him. But it's ok for him to abuse the law and pick on liberals by swift boating. How dare we hold his crap/him accountable. WRONG. Now. The decision to force his and the Koch bros SuperPAC to put disclaimers in their ads. THAT is imperative at this point
That sleazy, slimy bag of guts deserves nothing so much as a swift kick in the balls.
what a lie baby
Obama should have thrown that snake down the well the second he took office. But no. He provided cover for, allowed it to roam free. Now see how it repays his generosity.
Now he is head of the devil's version of the NAACP. Fighting tooth and nail to defend the civil rights of corporations, the undead, demons, devils, automatons, golems, The Elder Beings, and the Ancient Ones, and other extradimensional threats. American Crossroads? More like Wolfram and Hart.
This is what happens when evil walks unchecked and Obama could have stopped this a LONG time ago!
Buffy, Angel or even Giles, he is not.
that he can lie with a straight face...
sometimes Benen I just wanna ask....where were you during the 8 years of Shrub?
The 1% Buys an "W" for the board "NAA_P" for "NAAWP"
National Association of Automatic Weapons Purchasing - Wrong
National Accounting Association for Wealthy Persons - Wrong
Now Anyone in the Audience Want Peanuts - Bingo
Was there a fear in 1940s and 1950s that the NAACP was going to buy an election? What attack ads were the NAACP running back then? They probably were afraid of retaliation by the powers at be for helping blacks gain rights. This is another false equivalency argument tossed out by the right. Rove is a criminal who should have gone to jail, and certainly he has no right to talk about the unfairness or injustice others are causing. But when you are defending the 1%, lies and distortions are just another day at the office.
Ok, Democrats fear democracy.
Socialists fear socialism.
Capitalists fear capitalism.
Isolationists fear isolationism.
Hey I like this game. I should be a Fox contributor too.
I would daresay, Karl Rove is rather liberal with his retarded "comparison".