Because Rove is a sociopathic douchebag?

Because branding someone as a liberal liar is far more effective than having a dry discussion of why Obama's health care proposals may rely too heavily on government intervention while forcing rationing in certain coverage sectors.

Just to clarify: I don't beleive Obama is a liberal liar, that's just what Rove is repeatedly insinuating and what he wants voters to believe.

>>when he won the highest vote percentage of any non-incumbent candidate of either party in 20 years, and the highest for a non-incumbent in 56 years.>>
What's the difference between a non-incumbent candidate of either party and a non-incumbent?

So why whine incessantly about broken promises? -- Steve Benen

So that some people -- those who don't pay as close attention as you do to everything every politician has said -- might begin to believe that Obama has, indeed, broken his promises to the nation.

Republicans have a big problem in that Obama seems to be uncommonly popular almost across the board. Because of that, they're hobbled; they have to limit their criticism to the Dem Congress-crtitters (at least they had to, until Limbo paved the way with his "I want him to fail"). If they can take Obama down a peg -- as a liar, as a promise-breaker, whatever -- then it'll be easier to attack him directly, without a fear of backlash.

One need not be a policy expert to see that Obama's healthcare plan does not call for a "government-run" system. But Rove insists that is. As proof, Rove points to ... nothing in particular.

Note Rove's exact wording: "...will lead us to the extreme of government-run health care." Through weasel-wording he avoids making a claim that can be proven false by current facts.

So you don't like the messenger, so you shoot him and pretend the message was never delivered.

How typical.

Karl Rove has simply pointed out a few contradictions in what Obama has promised and what he's actually delivered so far, and liberals get into foot-stamping hysterics.

Put down the kerosene and noose, people. Beating up on Rove just makes the lot of you look like sore winners.

-A

Yeah and GW Bush promised to be a uniter not a divider along with being a compasionate conservative. eat shit and die Karl Rove

This is just more classic Rove.

F*ck Limbaugh, Steele, and Boehner. Rove IS the brains behind Republican party.

What Rove is, the GOP is. And Rove is a disciplined liar with a gift for nuance who taps weak minds to do his bidding.

No Hypocrisy Here...
Seriously! When we liberal/progressives/socialists accuse Today's Republican Party™ of "hypocrisy," we mistakenly compare what they used to say with what they're saying now, then grouse about the discrepancies.

There's no discrepancy, however, when you assume that what Rove says at any "point in time" (love that Republican phrase!) is what he thinks will gain him the most advantage, that will convince the most people of whatever he wants to convince them of. One day, it's hyping his incumbent boss. Tomorrow, it's sliming the new non-Republican boss.

It's all totally consistent - and totally dishonest. But not hypcritical.

Karl Rove has simply pointed out a few contradictions in what Obama has promised and what he's actually delivered so far, and liberals get into foot-stamping hysterics. Posted by: Atanarjuat on March 5, 2009 at 1:20 PM

This is simply wrong, Ata.

This is just standard noise-machine practice. They're keeping the faithful happy, testing out various lines to see how good the response is, keeping their names in the game, keeping up a low level of discontent.

For them, words are tools to evoke responses, not conveyors of meaning.

Think of this as impromptu music, or small-venue jamming. It's not a major performance.

"Karl Rove has simply pointed out a few contradictions in what Obama has promised and what he's actually delivered so far, and liberals get into foot-stamping hysterics."

I didn't see anything hysterical in Steve's post. In fact, I saw just the opposite: a calm, responsible fact-checking, based on reason.

By the way, does it seem grating to anyone else to see Rove type "Mr. Obama?" The fact that he refuses to say "President Obama" strikes me as somewhat disrespectful. It's not a big deal either way, but it really feels like he can't bring himself to say it.

["Birther" hysteria deleted.]

Rove is a practitioner of the Big Lie. Say something often enough (three times) and it becomes the truth. Even when someone provides factual refutation, the basic premise -- in this case Obama is a liar -- of the lie is then embedded as the basis of discourse. And with our REALLY lazy, sycophantic MSM, the big lie works wonderfully. Or used to. We'll see.

@ Greg Worley 1:39
I could not agree more . Just watch yer local MSM Cable NOOZE channel 3..2...1... Obama a Liar? lets hear fromm our esteemed panel of hacks who will discuss for the next 45 minutes while at times hyperventalating and repeating Karl's talking points. That my comrades ;-) it what passes for news and commentary in this country

Karl Rove, war criminal, regular contributor to the WSJ and sought after opinion maker inside the beltway. The history of our era won't be a pretty one. As the Harper's article two days ago made clear in its interpretation of the release of more memos from the Bush admin, we were living under a dictatorship for the last 8 years but many wouldn't admit to it.

I'd like to see an investigative journalist late out plainly and clearly how the beltway echo chamber works. Is it swarm theory, a carefully constructed plumbing system, a mixture of both or something else altogether.

So why whine incessantly about broken promises?

Hence, accusing the President of "lying" for not cutting earmarks to zero (he never said that he would, but that he would "reform the process"); or saying that the amount of earmarks represent a broken campaign promise (the President said that he wanted to reduce earmarks to pre-FY94 levels, when it was $7.8B, and the FY09 omnibus package includes $7.7B in earmarks); or conflating the current omnibus spending bill with Obama's recently-released budget plan (they're two completely different things).

Unfortunately for Rove, too many Americans have decided that nothing a Republican says is true (WMD! I'm a plumber! Marsh mouse!), so it likely doesn't matter... still call it for what it is (attempted bamboozlement), instead of feigning wide-eyed wonder.

Surely you know the fable of the Frog and the Whiny-Ass Lying Motherfucker Republican Turtle?

Once they were halfway across the river, the turtle started whining and lying.
"You promised not to do that said the frog."
"But I don't know how to do anything else!" whined the turtle.

Obama is doing pretty much exactly what he said he'd do at one point or another during his campaign. The asterisk here is that he kept adjusting what he was saying during the campaign to suit his needs at the time. So I'm sure quotes could be culled to support or attack the consistency of his positions.

Wasn't George Bush the master of bait and switch politics? Didn't Paul Begala write a book early in the Bush term citing example after example ad naseum of the bait and switch politics of Bush?

What Rove is doing has a psychological term - it's called "projection."

Steve, I'm confused about this stat:

President Obama...won the highest vote percentage of any non-incumbent candidate of either party in 20 years, and the highest for a non-incumbent in 56 years.

Aren't those two subsets overlapping, or am I missing something? If President Obama received a higher percentage of the vote than any non-incumbent candidate since 1952, wouldn't that automatically trump 1988?

Rove accuses Obama of "bait and switch". Pot? Meet kettle.

Perhaps Mr. Rove doesn't recall his candidate running as "The Uniter-er". How'd that go Karl? Oh, yes, I remember now: He split the country so hard it actually ruined his own party!

Got any more good ones?

No matter how many votes Obama got in November or how large his margin of victory was, there is a minority in the country who absolutely hate and fear him. I have a brother-in-law who constantly emails me alerts of how Obama is making us into a Muslim communist nation. This brother-in-law is absolutely serious about his beliefs. That is Rove's audience, and his continued writings and talk-show appearances just keeps feeding the fears of this fringe.

For example, Mr. Obama didn't run promising larger deficits

An excellent point! He also didn't run not promising to provide me with free frozen desserts on a monthly basis, and yet here I am, ice cream-free, a full month and a half into his administration. Unless I receive government-funded fudgesicle by the end of March, I too must conclude that Obama is a liar. A frozen dessert-hating liar.

Steve left out "Democratic" in "highest for a [Democratic] non-incumbent in 56 years." For the second time recently, alas. Although that doesn't seem right either - that is, the last Democratic non-incumbent to get a bigger percentage of the popular vote than Obama was FDR in 1944, which was 64, not 56 years ago. 56 years ago the Dem candidate lost the election rather badly. Steve, get your quote straight, because this is the second time you've gotten it wrong!

Why Does Rove Keep Repeating Things Which Are Not True?

Because he studied propaganda tools of history, and took to heart one dictum from the Nazi's, propaganda chief Joseph Goebbles, "Repeat a lie often enough and the people will believe it!� (Note: I think that Rove is NOT a Nazi, and he only uses this one PR technique for fun and profit.)

*

I suppose it's necessary to push back on B.S. like this, but of course it's hardly surprising to hear Rove lie about his political opponents.

So, keep up the good work, Steve, but I'm likely to just skip over posts like this in the future.

I'm curious if Rove doesnt have a point on one matter:

Rove: Nor did Mr. Obama run promising more earmarks. Instead, he said he'd reform the earmark culture and "scour the federal budget, line by line, and make meaningful cuts."

Mr. Benen replied:

Of course, Obama isn't delivering more earmarks, Congress is -- and six of the 10 biggest "pork"-lovers in the Senate are Republicans.

That doesnt really answer the point of whether Obama is going line-by-line through the budget and making meaningful cuts. I mean, given that a President doesnt have a line-item veto, I dont know exactly how Obama intended this plan to work. But as it stands right now, it doesnt appear to be working.

The quote Rove included *is* a legit Obama quote. If Obama is not living up to that, it's fair to criticize him for it.

That doesnt really answer the point of whether Obama is going line-by-line through the budget and making meaningful cuts. I mean, given that a President doesnt have a line-item veto, I dont know exactly how Obama intended this plan to work.

I think he intended to make it work by going through the current budget for things that should be cut, and then cutting them in his budget proposal. Of course, he can't stop Congress from adding things back in short of vetoing the whole budget, so its ultimately going to be a matter of negotiation. Frankly, I think that's a good thing: even if I thought that Obama, specifically, would be better at budgeting than Congress, I'd rather not live in a country which gave the chief executive dictatorial budget-writing power, even if that means sometimes you get a worse budget than you would have if they had that power.

I think he intended to make it work by going through the current budget for things that should be cut, and then cutting them in his budget proposal.

Fair enough. Do we have any evidence that that happened? Or that Obama pushed for any cuts or fought when Congress added things?

Let's also remember that the Bushies were so upset when Kerry suggested that Bush wanted to privatize Social Security that they actually got Kerry to apologize for saying it. Then, when Dumbya was re-elected, he tried to privatize Social Security and claimed that it was a major platform of his.

I, like Singularity, think you have this one wrong, Mr. Benen.

Mr. Rove is not incorrect this time

Mr. Obama didn't run promising larger deficits -- but now is offering record-setting ones.

In 2012, when Jindal or Romney win the nomination thanks mostly to promising larger deficits, I hope they have the courtesy to think fondly of Rove for their victory.

"Do we have any evidence that that happened? Or that Obama pushed for any cuts or fought when Congress added things?"

The Obama administration has stated, I believe, that since the current omnibus bill is last year's business, postponed when the previous Congress couldn't reach agreement, they're pretty much hands off.

Maybe you can consider that a broken promise. Personally, I think it's a not-unreasonable point, particularly with everything else going on.

The levels of hypocrisy these days are truly truly mind boggling.

I watched Hannity and Coulter on Fox (standing in a bar that had the idiot on) opining that Obama was "the greatest wealth destroyer in our modern history."

Uh, pardon me...Obama has been in office slightly over a month and just where did this implosion of wealth come from?....the greatest wealth destroyer in our modern history.....the laissez faire, spend and tax cut, massive government corruption, fight-a-war-off-the-books GOP, led by the Chimpinator in Chief.

Sean, get your head out of Ann's a....s and shut the f...k up!