Karl Rove should have been frog-marched into federal prison. Instead, we get this:
On the final morning of the Republican National Convention, Karl Rove took the stage at the Tampa Club to provide an exclusive breakfast briefing to about 70 of the Republican Party’s highest-earning and most powerful donors. During the more than hour-long session, Rove explained to an audience dotted with hedge fund billionaires and investors—including John Paulson and Wilbur Ross—how his super PAC, American Crossroads, will persuade undecided voters in crucial swing states to vote against Barack Obama. He also detailed plans for Senate and House races, and joked, “We should sink Todd Akin. If he’s found mysteriously murdered, don’t look for my whereabouts!”
Then Rove pleaded with his audience for more money—much more.
Making death threats against a sitting U.S. Congressman, regardless of whether they’re from your own party, is just not funny at all. Plus, Rove’s entire political operation should be illegal.
I would totally murder Todd Akin for a chance to control the senate. What’s the going rate for hitmen these days? It’s gotta be excellent bang for the buck compared to running tv ads. Economic and practical.
In all seriousness, that businessweek piece was really fascinating.
I actually think we should be less uptight and more tolerant of jokes like that. I say things like that in private sometimes and they’re funny.
I agree about excessive uptightness. OTOH there is the question of public vs private speech. Problem is, Reps have no sense of humor, so you never know when something’s supposed to be a joke.
Clearly a joke!!!
You are in an uprage over a Karl Rove joke!!??
Are you kidding me?
Wow…you Leftists are much more panicked than the polls indicate that you should be…
What do you know that we don’t?
No wonder Republicans like guns so much. They’re masters of projection.
Thank you, thank you. I’ll be here all night. Try the sirloin!
Uprage?
Karl Rove should be in jail and be subjected to all sorts of stereotypes about prison life. You know, ugly orange uniforms, low quality food, and things of that nature.
I thinks a word?!
Boo:
OT, but I wonder if you have a comment about this:
http://coreyrobin.com/2012/08/30/were-going-to-tax-their-ass-off/
and this(which is basically part 2):
http://thecurrentmoment.wordpress.com/2012/08/31/pastiche-without-purpose-democrats-and-the-politics
-of-debt/
I recall Lee Atwater’s comments at the end of his life. He said, “my illness has taught me something about the nature of humanity, love, brotherhood and relationships that I never understood, and probably never would have. So, from that standpoint, there is some truth and good in everything.”
He later wrote in a Life Magazine article, “My illness helped me to see that what was missing in society is what was missing in me: a little heart, a lot of brotherhood. The ’80s were about acquiring — acquiring wealth, power, prestige. I know. I acquired more wealth, power, and prestige than most. But you can acquire all you want and still feel empty. What power wouldn’t I trade for a little more time with my family? What price wouldn’t I pay for an evening with friends? It took a deadly illness to put me eye to eye with that truth, but it is a truth that the country, caught up in its ruthless ambitions and moral decay, can learn on my dime. I don’t know who will lead us through the ’90s, but they must be made to speak to this spiritual vacuum at the heart of American society, this tumor of the soul.” He apologized to Michael Dukakis for the cruelty with which he took him down.
I’m surprised men like Karl Rove dismiss Atwater’s motives in the most cynical terms. It’s as if their cynicism cannot be touched and they therefore see everything through it. But no one lives forever and ultimately, even if one doesn’t believe in an afterlife, one still has to look in the mirror in this life. I guess I just don’t understand the sociopathic mind.
Unfortunately, it’s very important that you and every other more or less normal human being SHOULD understand the sociopathic mind. Fortunately, it’s not so difficult:
The most important thing is that they lack the capacity for empathy. Before you ask “how can that be?” — or “surely they must have some”, just accept that there are some people like that.
Second, lacking it themselves, they don’t understand it in others. They see empathy in others simply as a weakness, a lack, that gives them (the psychopaths, sociopaths and narcissists) a great advantage over others. They actually find this funny, hence their sadistic sense of humor, and it also makes them feel smarter than everyone else.
Their most pleasurable emotion is the feeling of having put something over on others, the bigger the better.
They tend to associate together because “birds of a feather flock together.” They can actually appreciate each other’s con games.
Third, lacking empathy, they often become very good at counterfeiting it, again using that as a way of conning people while having completely ulterior motives.
Sound klike anybody you know? Like, the Republican Party? Of course there are plenty of nice people who vote GOP or even are in the GOP. But they have other problems. Like prejudice and gullibility, which the sociopaths use to their own ends.
Needless to say, sociopaths are very dangerous, and that’s why we all MUST understand them — to protect ourselves, our loved ones, our communities and our country. Not so much the “why”, which is difficult — but at least the “what”.
I suspect that what happened with Lee Atwater is that something about his fatal brain tumor altered the structure of his brain, kicking in the capacity for empathy and allowing him to end his life with some understanding of what it means to be human.
I don’t know — it seems like with this alleged revelation he could have given some insight into his own sociopathy instead of just moaning about what was wrong with the culture. All I hear is him complaining that the culture made him bad.
I don’t think sociopathy works that way. You either have empathy or you don’t. You may have it burned out of your brain due to an early trauma, but the idea of growing the capacity for it late in life due to a tumor strikes me as highly unlikely, at best.
You don’t have to be a true sociopath to learn how to emulate successful ones. Like as not that’s how Atwater spent his adult life, repressing his normal human instincts in copying behavior from effective people in his chosen profession, only to have a “come to Jesus moment” on his deathbed, when life suddenly ceased to be a game for him.
It’d be interesting to study his early mentors, though.
Your last point is a good one. You don’t have to be a true sociopath, to emulate them.
I also agree that true sociopaths, as a general rule, do not develop a conscience late in life. However, sociopaths do not usually develop a massive brain tumor either, and only this unusual circumstance prompted me to suggest that Atwater’s deathbed insights may have been made possible by a rearrangement of his brain.
In any case, I do not read Atwater’s comments as blaming society for his actions. He knew perfectly well, as did everybody else, that he was one of the architects of that society.
It by no means started with Atwater (read Melville’s Confidence Man), but America is a paradise for sociopaths.
Was it a joke? Akin wouldn’t be the first to cross Rove’s path and end up dead.