NYT - * Moved Conservatism Past Reactionary, Rove Says

[paineinthearse]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/18/politics/18conserv.html?pagewanted=all

February 18, 2005
Bush Moved Conservatism Past Reactionary, Rove Says
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

ASHINGTON, Feb. 17 - Karl Rove, the political adviser to President Bush who recently became chief of staff for policy, said on Thursday that Mr. Bush had helped transform conservatism from "reactionary" to "forward looking," in part by incorporating what had been liberal ideas on foreign policy. "The president made a powerful case in the inaugural speech and before for spreading human liberty and preserving human dignity," Mr. Rove said at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference here.

"This was once the preserve of liberalism, but a fellow named Ronald Reagan changed all that," he continued, saying President Reagan had contended that the "power of liberty" would enable Americans to "transcend" Soviet Communism instead of contain it. "President Bush has expanded on that belief," Mr. Rove said, addressing several thousand students and conservative activists at the Ronald Reagan Building for the conference's 32nd annual gathering.

Although the event has often been a forum for criticism of Republican officials from the right, and some discussions of intraparty disputes are scheduled for Friday, applause for the president's policies dominated Thursday's events. Mr. Rove was speaking publicly for the first time in his new position, which gives him a formal role in foreign as well as domestic policy decisions for the first time.

Some conservatives had criticized President Bush's Inaugural Address for its sweeping language about spreading liberty and ending tyranny around the world. They argued that his foreign policy had abandoned the conservative movement's traditionally narrower approach to national interest, and they questioned how Mr. Bush might apply his principles to undemocratic but strategically important allies like Pakistan. But Mr. Rove cast Mr. Bush's policy as a political asset, saying, "We are seizing the mantle of idealism."

more......

[two gun sid]

1. Past reactionary, directly to Fascist.

Karl Rove is a big fat dick.

[coloradodem2005]

2. Cheney's the dick.

Rove is just a Rush Limbaugh wannabe.

[verdalaven]

3. And so Rove is now calling the pResident

the biggest liberal in DC?

"Mr. Bush had helped transform conservatism from "reactionary" to "forward looking," in part by incorporating what had been liberal ideas on foreign policy."

?? What kind of twisted statement is this? In order to defend their stunningly un-conservative policies, they are claiming that their policies are crafted with liberal ideas in mind? Did I read this wrong?

Ugh, the pain.

[paineinthearse]

4. You got it right. Remember, these people's language is newspeak. nt

[K-W]

5. Forward looking conservatism. WHAT THE F....

I love how the conservatives can hear that and not realize they are being led around by the nose.

Idiots and lunatics.

[Occulus]

6. Direct contradiction.

1=2. It's factually untrue.

Conservatism, by definition, cannot look forward.

It can only walk backward into the future.

[K-W]

8. One problem with resisting reality is the need for myths.

The unfortunate problem with conservatives. Whether it is rediculous economic theories and paradigm's, paranoid dellusional foriegn policy, or the many cults, religions, societies, and philosopies they adopt to justify thier resistance.

Now it is natural and understandable that conservatives exist. For any specific situation you will have conservatives and that is a part of our natural diversity. The problem is when you get large groups of reactionaries all generalizing thier particular unhappiness with thier version of change and all adopting a common mythological ideology that juse begs to influenced and controlled by powerful and ambitious people.

What Rove thinks he is accomplishing is the long struggle to try to normalize the fact that our government and society are wholly corrupt by controlling the mythology of reactionaries so well. They are trying to get the population to internalize thier control. And to a large extent they have, getting a one party state would just be icing on the cake.

Rove thinks too highly of himself. He is standing on the shoulders of giants. And most of what Rove gets credit for is the work of a media that isnt controlled by him.

[paineinthearse]

7. Photo - turdblossom speaks at PNAC

Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove speaks to the Conservative Political Action conference in Washington, February 17, 2005. Rove, the adviser President Bush called 'the architect' of the 2004 Republican election win, said the November victory was a triumph of conservative ideas and proof the movement had become the dominant force in American politics. Photo by Yuri Gripas/Reuters