A news story I’m waiting to see:
Karl Rove Apologizes for 9/11 Remarks -- Weeps Like a Baby While Asking Liberals, 9/11 Widows, and Therapists for Forgiveness
The Huffington Post
Wednesday, June 29, 2005; 9:55 am
A week after claiming that liberals responded inappropriately to the 9/11 attacks, deputy White House chief of staff Karl Rove apologized at an emotion-filled Rose Garden press conference.
“Some may believe that my remarks crossed the line,” said the man the president affectionately calls “Turd Blossom," biting his lip and fighting back tears. “To them I extend my heartfelt apologies."
Rove said that while he actually did mean to exploit the 9/11 attacks for “political, opportunistic purposes," just as his critics have claimed, and wasn’t really sorry that he had done so, he decided to apologize because “everyone else was doing it… and I didn’t want to be left out -- like I always was in high school.”
On the road still trying to drum up support for his plan to privatize everything, President Bush called Rove’s apology “an honorable step toward placating the liberal media attack dogs.”
Rove’s Rose Garden mea culpa came a week after the man known as Bush’s Brain gave a speech to the Conservative Party of New York State in which he said: “Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 and the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers.”
The comments drew widespread criticism from Democrats -- many of whom demanded an apology. “Karl Rove doesn’t owe me an apology,” said John Kerry. “He owes the country an apology.”
Nevertheless the rotund Bush advisor insisted on specifically apologizing to Kerry along with everybody else.
Here is Rove’s apology in its entirety (any similarity to Dick Durbin’s apology is strictly intentional):
“More than most people, a cagey political operative lives by his words. Words are the coin of the realm in our profession. Occasionally, words will fail us, and occasionally we will fail words. And every now and then we will actually use the word “fail” -- but never in relation to the war in Iraq. On June the 22nd, I took to the podium at a partisan political event and raised my genuine, heartfelt concerns about how some Americans not of the conservative persuasion reacted to the events of 9/11. I raised legitimate concerns that others have raised, including any number of AM radio hosts and Fox News commentators. During this speech, on my own, in my own words, I brought up 9/11 and Al Jazeera and Dick Durbin, and used the phrases “motives of liberals” and “putting America’s men and women in uniform in greater danger” in connection to each other. I’ve since come to understand that this might not have been the brightest choice of words -- that some may believe my remarks crossed the line. To them, I extend my heartfelt apologies. There’s usually a quote from Abraham Lincoln that you can turn to in moments like this. But Dick Durbin already used the one I wanted to use… and I’m saving the other good ones for Nancy Pelosi, Howard Dean, and all the other liberal Democrats my fellow Republicans have demanded apologies from. I’d also like to apologize to John Kerry… just because.”
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld who had earlier gone on Fox News Radio and compared Durbin’s Guantanamo comments to Jane Fonda calling U.S. soldiers war criminals during a visit to North Vietnam in 1972, had no comment on either Rove’s 9/11 remarks or his apology.