Karl Rove

Mr. Rove gave a speech yesterday. Unfortunately I only have a transcript of his remarks "as prepared". One hesitates to call such a document a transcript, but there you are. The newspeople do seem to be reporting that he actually read from his prepared remarks, at least.

The interesting thing about Rove's speech is not what he said (elections will be about terrorism, judges, and taxes. Mostly about terrorism) but how he said it.

He has stepped back from calling opponents of the President unpatriotic. He has turned to the language of "public debate".

Our opponents are our fellow citizens, not our enemies. Honorable people can have honest political differences. And we should strive for civility and intellectual integrity in our debates.

At the same time, Democrats and Republicans have deep differences about our nation, where it is going, and what needs to be done to make it stronger, better, and safer. Those differences should be debated this year - openly, publicly, passionately."

[...]

Let me be as clear as I can: President Bush believes if al Qaeda is calling somebody in America, it is in our national security interest to know who they're calling and why. Some important Democrats clearly disagree. This is an issue worthy of a public debate.

At the core, we are dealing with two parties that have fundamentally different views on national security. Republicans have a post-9/11 worldview - and many Democrats have a pre-9/11 worldview. That doesn't make them unpatriotic, not at all. But it does make them wrong - deeply and profoundly and consistently wrong.

[...]

We welcome a fair-minded and high-minded debate about the purpose and meaning of the courts in our lives. Our arguments will carry the day because the force and logic and wisdom of the Founders are on our side.

Now, it's absurd for someone like Rove to call for a "fair-minded and high-minded debate". He has no credibility to suggest such a thing, and never will. But I think it's good that he feels required to say it.

Recall his words from June 2005:

Conservatives saw what happened to us on 9/11 and said: we will defeat our enemies. Liberals saw what happened to us and said: we must understand our enemies. Conservatives see the United States as a great nation engaged in a noble cause; liberals see the United States and they see … Nazi concentration camps, Soviet gulags, and the killing fields of Cambodia.

Has there been a more revealing moment this year than when Democratic Senator Richard Durbin, speaking on the Senate floor, compared what Americans had done to prisoners in our control at Guantanamo Bay with what was done by Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot - three of the most brutal and malevolent figures in the 20th century?

Let me put this in fairly simple terms: Al Jazeera now broadcasts to the region the words of Senator Durbin, certainly putting America's men and women in uniform in greater danger. No more needs to be said about the motives of liberals.

It is not much of a victory, but it is something: Karl Rove is afraid to call us unpatriotic. We do not turn a tide, but nor do we protest in vain.

Now, back to the regularly scheduled "J"s.