Last updated on June 6th, 2014 at 12:48 am
Fox is working hard to spin the Karl Rove Hillary Clinton brain damage lie debacle into a win, and the best they’ve got this morning is that Karl Rove is now a hot story! Plus, they totally “smoked Clinton out”.
Karl Rove was going to be the Kilmeade & Friends panel, but he’s one of the “hottest political stories out there”. In other words, he was too busy to put his foot in his mouth again. Very busy. So very busy.
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Watch a clip of the May 15 edition of Fox News Radio’s Kilmeade & Friends courtesy of Media Matters here:
Kilmeade explained at the end of the clip that Karl Rove was supposed to be there but he’s so hot now, “The aforementioned Karl Rove will be on our program and our panel — He was just due to be on but he’s become one of the hottest political stories out there.”
Maybe Karl Rove suddenly got booked up, but as of 1:30PM this is the list of his media appearances and it doesn’t seem like he was so popular he couldn’t show up on a Fox radio show. Maybe hes so busy and popular that he only has time to take May 15 down from his appearances, but no time to add in new appearances, because that is totally how his PR people would handle this debacle.
Here’s how Fox is spinning this as a “win”:
Fox’s Chris Wallace was tasked with making Rove appear to be a brilliant warrior who once again put his opponent on the defense, “Well, it’s not out of bounds. I’m not sure that it’s particularly legitimate. Not in the sense of everybody’s health. There’s certainly no sign that she’s walking wounded. Politics ain’t beanbag. It’s a tough game. It’s a contact sport. And I think Karl Rove knew exactly what he was doing, and it has forced the Clintons both Bill and Hillary to fight back… And I think enter a new phase of what I think is going to be a presidential candidacy. Bill Clinton making the remarks you had on earlier.”
Oh, yes, politics is a contact sport, which totally explains why Karl Rove would deploy his wmd prematurely.
Wallace reminded everyone that people questioned John McCain’s age and temperament (of course, there was reason for this) and Reagan accused Michael Dukakis of being mentally depressed (he also called him an invalid). This smoked the Clintons out. “Made her more of a target. Also reminders her if she has any doubts for it that this won’t be a coronation, she’s going to have to fight for nomination.”
“I think it was probably pretty smart politics. Not especially attractive; but smart and effective. My guess is, even if he knows that there’s no indication that she has brain damage, he probably is laughing himself to sleep at night thinking, ‘I got the Clintons on the front page, and she’s a target now — and that’s kind of what I want to accomplish right now.'”
I suspect we will be seeing a lot more of Karl Rove’s 2012 Ohio face, because this guy just doesn’t get that the country has moved on and his brand of thuggery no longer flies under the radar. Joan Walsh did an excellent job yesterday explaining why this is such a fail for Rove. It involves the judicious and correct use of the word troll, and is a must read.
As for Hillary and her “coronation”, that comment was almost hysterical coming from the network that pushed King Romney, whose “turn” it was to an entitled, ego-massaging sit-in at the White House. But maybe the Clintons are thanking Karl Rove for brushing them up on their Republican hate strategies and making sure Ms. Hillary really wants to do this thing.
And while I don’t support the idea of any candidate running away with the presidency, right now, Hillary Clinton would do just that because Republicans can’t find a viable candidate in their grab bag of tea clowns, fiction-based policy writers, and white supremacist pals. All they can muster is Jeb Bush and maybe another Romney go. So of course, Fox is talking about coronations and pretending it’s Hillary Clinton, who knows full well the pain of losing a hard fight for the presidential nomination, who believes in them. Projection ain’t a river in Egypt.
Tell us again how this is such a big win for Bush’s brain, to be caught before Hillary has even announced hitting her with his scattershot hopes and failing spectacularly. Hint: It’s never good to be busted as telling a complete fabrication about an opponent, especially before the race has even started.
No, sorry, this isn’t a win for Karl no matter how desperately the echo chambers on the right tell him it is. And Karl Rove is starting to figure that out. But in the meantime, it seems he’s too much of a coward to even appear on a Fox radio show. Of course, if he has another reason for not showing up, this might just be a “contact sport” in which we are “smoking him out.”
Ain’t it awful how an allegedly brain damaged woman tripped the big, bad, genius Republican “strategist” by hoisting him on his own petard?
Welcome to the new Democratic Party, Mr. Rove, where the power of the Clintons meets the media strategy of team Obama. The free ride is over.
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