A mere two days after Scooter Libby's conviction of obstruction of justice and perjury, in a trial that reeked of Karl Rove, the non-repentant megalomaniac filled the minds of the Clinton School students with his special brand of politics. Here's a sample of flab-boy's political wisdom of which he was unabashedly proud.
Asked how he felt about candidate Hillary Clinton by James "Skip" Rutherford, the one-time Chairman of the William J. Clinton Foundation, current Dean of The Clinton School and interviewer for the evening, Mr. Rove offered up the following:
"She's a formidable candidate. I inherited her office in the West Wing of the White House which irritated her because I went out and said once that I really am glad to have Hillary Clinton's office in the West Wing of the White House. Second floor, really nice office space. It's really good 'cause it has a full-length vanity mirror hidden behind a file cabinet...
A few days later I saw her and she said, 'I didn't put that mirror there.' So I went out and said it again. I never said she put the mirror there. I just said, I got Hillary Clinton's office and I'm really happy 'cause it's got the only full-length vanity mirror in the West Wing... I saw her a couple days later riding on the Senate tram and she said, 'I said I didn't put that mirror there!' [laughs] I'm gonna tell the story again."
During Rove's rendition, Cspan focused on three young students in the audience who were obviously uneasy with what they'd just heard.
Well, there you have it, you eager young students at the University of Arkansas CLINTON School of Public Service. You're the proud recipients of a personally delivered lesson in Rovian deceit and deception. Now make sure y'all graduate so you can get on out there and use it! Don't y'all think about the truth. Just leak, deceive and lie.
Having Karl Rove at THE CLINTON SCHOOL to speak is like Hannibal Lechter lecturing on his special way to eat. Even Rove saw the irony, albeit absent the metaphorical accuracy with which I did. According to Rove, speaking at the Clinton School was like "having a heavy drinker holding fort at the temperance convention, or an atheist preaching at the Southern Baptists." Obviously, my perception is much more precise.
Watching Rove court his bad-boy mystique, couched in his doughboy physique, is actually pathetic. He enjoys being dubious, further evidenced when he declared, "I don't have that [Hillary's] office anymore. Now I'm down to the first floor. I had to move down to the first floor with adult supervision. I guess on the second floor I was out of control."
Oh, Karl, you're sooo baddy-bad. Someone oughta spank ya. Or better yet, indict ya!! Which may actually happen now that Waxman's House Committee on Government Reform is investigating Plame-gate. One can only hope...
What was The Clinton School thinking when it invited Karl Rove? Better yet, what was the Dean thinking when he accepted every word Rove said without a single challenge?
It is perplexing, indeed irritating, when a tainted unprincipled man like Karl Rove is invited to speak at a School of Public Service. If achieving success by any means is qualification to lecture the students, than principles, honesty and conscience don't factor in the selection. This would be a sorry statement for any school. Particularly a school whose primary focus is the values and practices of a life of public service.
If in their political science classes, the students' professors, including their overly obliging Dean, haven't touched on the Libby case and Rove's well-documented infamy, then they aren't doing their jobs. It is true that to promote the acquisition of knowledge, exposure of all kinds is necessary. And to be fair, for the first half of his presentation, Rove did provide an historical overview of the Modern Presidency. But the second half was one hundred percent Rovian ideology and lies, including a positive assessment of the War on Iraq, a fabricated explanation for the firings of the eight U.S. Attorneys, and a glowing tribute to George W.'s managerial brilliance. None of which are true!
One can only hope for the benefit of the students, they were afterward enjoined by their professors to honestly and energetically dissect Karl Rove's performance, based on facts and reasoned hypotheses. It is only under these circumstances that the students at the Clinton School could have been positively served in any manner by the presence of Karl Rove.
Finally, allow me the displeasure of providing you with Karl Rove's closing remarks to James "Skip" Rutherford, the Dean of the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service, followed by the Dean's surprising acquiescence to Mr. Rove's ensuing statement:
"One of the best things this president has done, and one of the remarkable things about this job, is the freedom that he has created within this White House to be able to say, 'Mr. President, I don't think you're looking so pretty today. That office is overwhelming... yet I've seen over the last six years an atmosphere created where you can walk in and disagree with a colleague deeply and not be able to resolve the issue. And go in and somebody says 'A' and somebody says the opposite of 'A,' and know that a decision is gonna be made, and at the end of the day you're gonna be able to walk out of there and have confidence that the right decision was made and that you got the respect of your colleague whether your side prevailed or not. And that is a difficult thing to achieve.
But because of the quality of the people this president has drawn and the atmosphere that he's created, that exists. And that's really, really important. It's important for the country. It's important for a president. But it makes it a really challenging and really interesting place to be and a really exciting place to be as well. "
To which Skip the Dean concedes, "And I couldn't agree with you more. Ladies and gentlemen, let's give a big round of applause for Karl Rove."
Congratulations, President Clinton. At a most inconvenient time in your wife's candidacy, The School of Public Service to which you have given your name, has provided a televised platform for the lies, distortions and propaganda of Karl Christian Rove. I'm certain candidate Clinton is absolutely thrilled.
