karl rove

David Zurawik , the media critic for the Baltimore Sun, has published a post at Daily Download, in which he declares that MSNBC is now worse than Fox News in ideology. The reason? Well he says it in the first paragraph:

MSNBC has long been as bad as Fox News when it comes to ideological bias. But with the hiring of longtime Team Obama loyalists David Axelrod and Robert Gibbs, it’s official: MSNBC is worse.

Apparently Mr. Zurawik is media dumb. Allow me to try and inform him of Fox's past hires.

• Karl Rove - Senior adviser to George Bush. Leaves White House and joins Fox News.
• Dana Perino - Former press secretary for George Bush. Leaves White House and joins Fox News.

Then we have one that went in reverse, where the White House decided to pull it's talent from Fox News.

• Tony Snow - Fox News personality, leaves the network to become Bush press secretary.

Then we have some other notables:

• Liz Cheney - daughter of former vice-President, Dick Cheney. Worked in Bush's State Department. Leaves and joins Fox News.
• Jenna Bush - Daughter of George Bush. Now Fox News Contributor.

But apparently David Zurawik has no idea who these people are, since he fails to mention any of them in his post. That, or maybe he is just another partisan hack, ignoring facts to promote his own agenda. Which ever it is, the article has gone uncorrected for over 12 hours, so we do know that he is incompetent. That's pretty bad for someone who makes a living criticizing others.

Welcome to the crazy world of Politico:

The grumblers were picking up on a strategy that has been under way for some time — a “course correction,” as Fox chief Roger Ailes put it last fall — with the network distancing itself from the tea party cheerleading that characterized the first two years of President Barack Obama’s presidency. Lately, Fox has increasingly promoted its straight-news talent in the press and conducted some of the toughest interviews and debates of the Republican primary season. Just last week, it hired the openly gay liberal activist Sally Kohn as a contributor.

All along, Fox watchers warned that it risked alienating conservative true believers as it inched toward the center.

Well, consider them alienated.

“To tell you the truth, a lot of conservatives see Fox News as being somewhat skewed on certain issues,” said Patrick Brown, who runs Internet marketing for The Western Center for Journalism, a conservative nonprofit that features stories questioning the president’s eligibility for office. “We actually did a poll recently that said, ‘Is Fox News actually conservative, or has it moved left?’ And some 70 percent of our readers thought it had moved left.”

So because FOX reports more actual news their readers believe it's a move to the left? What's that say about America's right?

But the thing is that Fox hasn't moved to the left. Ed Kilgore explains:

But you need to understand the context: The second graph of Keach Hagey’s piece cites as the prime evidence for this “shift to the Left” the current prominence at Fox of Karl Rove and Sean Hannity. Seriously.

And they are trying to help them out:

Mr. Pearcy, 20, is running for a seat on the Arizona Corporation Commission, which oversees public utilities, railroad safety and securities regulation. Although Mr. Pearcy says he is taking his first run for public office seriously, the political establishment here views him as nothing more than a political dirty trick.

Mr. Pearcy and other drifters and homeless people were recruited onto the Green Party ballot by a Republican political operative who freely admits that their candidacies may siphon some support from the Democrats. Arizona’s Democratic Party has filed a formal complaint with local, state and federal prosecutors in an effort to have the candidates removed from the ballot, and the Green Party has urged its supporters to steer clear of the rogue candidates.

If the Republicans really have such a tidal wave year ahead of them, then why can’t they just go out and win without trying to cheat? One reason can probably be seen in the history of elections in this country.

When voter turn out is high then Democrats usually win. So how can they keep turnout lower? Well one way is to keep tainting the system to the point of disgust. Turn off enough voters that they won’t even bother hitting the polls. This is Karl Rove Tactics 101. If voters have to wait longer in line to vote, then they won’t bother. If enough dirty games are played, then they will get so put-off by the whole charade that they won’t vote.

The worst part is that this system does work for the GOP, so it won’t stop.

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee has launched a new 60-second ad targeting Rahm Emanuel:

Rahm is a good target, but I think we should also look at Obama, who is ultimately in charge. We didn’t blame a lot of the stuff that happened under Bush solely on Karl Rove, so we can’t do the same today.

Matt Taibbi:

I’ll say this for George Bush: you’d never have caught him frantically negotiating against himself to take the meat out of a signature legislative initiative just because his approval ratings had a bad summer. Can you imagine Bush and Karl Rove allowing themselves to be paraded through Washington on a leash by some dimwit Republican Senator of a state with six people in it the way the Obama White House this summer is allowing Max Baucus (favorite son of the mighty state of Montana) to frog-march them to a one-term presidency?

Breaking news from the Washington Post:

Former top White House official Karl Rove will be interviewed tomorrow as part of an ongoing criminal investigation into the firing of U.S. attorneys during the Bush administration, according to two sources familiar with the appointment.

Rove has remained in the news as a commentator and political analyst since departing the White House. In an essay in today's Wall Street Journal, he criticized House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), arguing that she may have misled the public about her knowledge of detainee interrogation tactics that critics assert are torture.

As a senior adviser to President George W. Bush, Rove emerged at the center of numerous policy and political debates. He will be questioned tomorrow by Connecticut prosecutor Nora R. Dannehy, who was named last year to examine whether any former senior Justice Department and White House officials lied or obstructed justice in connection with the dismissal of federal prosecutors in 2006.

Robert D. Luskin, a lawyer for Rove, declined comment this afternoon on the imminent interview. So did Tom Carson, a spokesman for Dannehy.

Hey I got an idea. If Rove doesn’t say what the prosecutors want then why not waterboard him? I mean its such an effective procedure as him and his party has been pointing out!

Steve Schmidt, a former top advisor for the McCain Campaign, is going to urge the GOP to get behind gay marriage:

"I'm confident American public opinion will continue to move on the question toward majority support, and sooner or later the Republican Party will catch up to it," Schmidt plans to say according to excerpts provided to ABC News.

Schmidt's push for Republicans to endorse same-sex marriage comes as his party is grappling with a string of gay rights victories in Iowa, Vermont, and Washington, D.C.

I wonder what Schmidt’s mentor, Karl Rove, will have to say about this.

Karl Rove has been subpoenaed by John Conyers, and now he doesn’t have a President Bush to protect him. This should be a fun one to watch. Hopefully the House moves to arrest Rove if when he refuses again.