The Madness Of Our Leaders

Sick fucks; how else can you characterize them?

Raw Story:

The architect of Bush's rise to power made the outrageous assertion last week that the Iraq invasion was the fault of Congress, not the White House. The Bush administration -- according to Rove's revisionism -- was simply aghast that a critical and controversial vote to let the president unleash US troops against Saddam Hussein came just weeks before lawmakers were to stand for re-election.

"One of the untold stories about the war is ... this administration was opposed to voting on (the authorization the use of military force) in the Fall of 2002," Rove claimed with a straight face and apparently uncrossed fingers in a pre-Thanksgiving appearance on PBS's The Charlie Rose Show.

Of course, as Olbermann notes, "It's an untold story because it isn't true."

Using a "rogue Web site called WhiteHouse.gov," Olbermann quickly undercuts Rove's assertion.

"Despite Rove's claim that the White House opposed voting on Iraq in the Fall of 2002," Olbermann said, "on the first full day of Fall that year, the president urged Congress to pass an Iraq resolution, quote, 'promptly.' A week later, the president and the House Republicans agreed on an Iraq resoulution. A week after that President Bush was 'pleased' with the House vote on Iraq, and a week after that Mr. Bush signed the authorization for the use of military force in Iraq."

Olbermann, and his guest Arianna Huffington, noted the similarity of Rove's apparent attempt to rewrite history to the dystopian role played by the Ministry of Truth in Orwell's classic 1984.

"We've all used George Orwell references and 1984 references so much that the estate of Eric Blair ought to be suing us for copyright violations," Olbermann said. "But this really is that book, isn't it? Can't you just see John Hurt [who played lead character Winston Smith in a film version of the book] talking into the dictaphone rewriting the old newspapers with Karl Rove over his shoulder to eliminate inconvenient facts? Is this not the practical application of he who controls the past controls the future."

Huffington reminder her guest that technology in the 21st century makes it much harder to shuffle inconvenient facts down the memory hole.

"The only problem is when 1984 was written, Google and Lexis Nexis did not exist, and now they do," she said.

"I don't think there is any possibility that what Karl Rove is saying has any connection to the truth," Huffington said later. "There is just too much evidence. ... We have the Downing Street Memo that shows that they were already fixing the intel. They were determined to use 9/11, to use the president's incredible popularity at the time, to use the spinelessness of the Democrats to take us to war as fast as possible. It doesn't matter what Karl Rove says. The truth is the truth. It exists. It's real. And he can't change it."