Article: Rove Goes After Obama, With Hillary's Help... Or Helping Hillary

Good thing Karl Rove has a job writing for the Wall Street Journal, because his latest political thoughts are pretty limp. Of course, Rove is not honored by those on the right for his political writings. He's revered as a dirty trickster-- brewing up false accusations, third party attacks, disenfranchisement of minority voters. But he's trying out this new gig, as an op-ed pundit, on Murdoch's Wall Street Journal and Fox News.

In today's Wall Street Journal Op-Ed, Rove is doing the echo chamber thing, joining the choir attacking both Obama and Clinton as , "left-leaning," "partisan" members of the "hard left." Of course, the fact that McCain is almost desperately doing all he can to bolster his credentials as a hard right, extremist conservative-- that's just fine, even though McCain claims to be reaching out to the middle and independents, at the same time.

But Rove uses Obama's positions and words to attack him as less than honest, as inauthentic.

Unlike Bill Clinton in 1992, Mr. Obama is completely unwilling to confront the left wing of the Democratic Party, no matter how outrageous its demands, no matter how out of touch it might be with the American people. And Tuesday night, in a key moment in this race, he dropped the pretense that his was a centrist agenda. His agenda is the agenda of the Democratic left.

Herr Karl takes Obama's opposition to Bush's pathetically failed "No Child Left Behind" and spins it into support for Teachers Unions.
Then, Rove spins Obama's support from unions-- organizations representing millions of voters-- and characterizes that support as support from Union special interests.

This attempt to spin unions as special interest groups needs to be dealt with directly and head on. Unions represent voters. Lobbyists for unions represent millions of Americans. There's a huge difference between them and lobbyists representing transnational corporations whose primary interests are profits. Let the voters decide that one. But make it clear that any pundit or politician who can't tell the difference between lobbying for people and workers or lobbying for profits is clearly showing where his values lie. Here's how Rove's lame attempt looks:

Mr. McCain gets a chance to question Mr. Obama's declaration he won't be beholden to lobbyists and special interests. After Mr. Obama's laundry list of agenda items on Tuesday night, Mr. McCain can ask why, if Mr. Obama rejects the influence of lobbyists, has he not broken with any lobbyists from the left fringe of the Democratic Party? ....The truth is that Mr. Obama is unwilling to challenge special interests if they represent the financial and political muscle of the Democratic left. He says yes to the lobbyists of the AFL-CIO when they demand card-check legislation to take away the right of workers to have a secret ballot in unionization efforts, or when they oppose trade deals. ...And he is now going out of his way to proclaim fidelity to the educational unions. This is a disappointment since he'd earlier indicated an openness to education reform. Mr. Obama backs their agenda down the line, even calling for an end to testing, which is the only way parents can know with confidence whether their children are learning and their schools working.

These stands represent not just policy vulnerabilities, but also a real danger to Mr. Obama's credibility and authenticity. He cannot proclaim his goal is the end of influence for lobbies if the only influences he seeks to end are lobbies of the center and the right.

Rove touts McCain's attack of Obama as strong, potent stuff, freshly introduced into the race, claiming "Mr. Obama had not been so effectively criticized before." And he cites McCain's sleep inducing attack:

John McCain also took on Mr. Obama, with the Arizona senator declaring he would oppose "eloquent but empty calls for change that promises no more than a holiday from history and a return to the false promises and failed policies of a tired philosophy that trusts in government more than people."

Rove argues that Obama is not really about bringing together the red and blue states to be the United States. His proof-- Obama did not join the right wing dems who were part of the Gang of 14-- ie, the gutless, sellout dems who helped Bush get his two SCOTUS appointees inflicted upon the US, without even a filibuster. He forgets to mention that Obama, failed to filibuster, like the rest of the invertebrate Democrats.

Then, Rove glowing discusses how Hillary will help deprecate Obama,

Mrs. Clinton can do much more to draw attention to Mr. Obama's lack of achievements. She can agree with Mr. Obama's statement Tuesday night that change is difficult to achieve on health care, energy, poverty, schools and immigration -- and then question his failure to provide any leadership on these or other major issues since his arrival in the Senate. His failure to act, advocate or lead on what he now claims are his priorities may be her last chance to make a winning argument.

Rove wraps up summing up his weak arguments, attempting to smear Obama's integrity:

For Mr. Obama, words are merely a means to hide a left-leaning agenda behind the cloak of centrist rhetoric. That garment has now been torn. As voters see what his agenda is, his opponents can now far more effectively question his authenticity, credibility, record and fitness to be leader of the free world.

Now, this is not surprising. It's to be expected of the duke of derision, swami of smear. We can expect, if the corner of Obama's mouth droops downward, or if his brows furrow, that Rove will photoshop it, editorially, if not vidographically, into a spin that Obama is angry, weak, depressed, emotionally unstable. Or, they'll catch Obama horsing around or yukiing it up a bit and treat him like a fool or idiot. That's the way he and his ilk works. It's not an if, not a maybe. It's a certainty.