Deputy White House Chief of Staff (aka “Bush’s Brain”) Karl Rove worked up the crowd at the 11th District Republican Convention last Saturday, April 28, at West Henderson High School.
The controversial presidential advisor called for more volunteer efforts to beef up the district’s GOP votes after the 2006 election that sent Rep. Heath Shuler to Washington and gave Democrats control of Congress. “It’s been 100 days,” Rove said of Shuler’s time in office. “It feels more like 100 years.”
Rove also spoke to the war in Iraq, often reiterating talking points made popular by radio and T.V. pundits, as well as President Bush himself.
Some excerpts from Rove’s address:
• “We have to fight them there so we don’t have to fight them again here.”
• “[t]he Internet that Al Gore so generously gave us.”
• “[U.S. troops] don’t need General Pelosi telling them how to win the war.”
As for the move by Congressional Democrats to legislate a timeline for leaving Iraq, Rove stressed what President Bush has said: “He’s got a veto pen,” Rove said. “It’s dead on arrival as long as George W. Bush is in the White House.”
All in all, it was typical of the kind of rallying speech a high-ranking politician makes to his base, confirming party-line beliefs and reinforcing the confidence of GOP voters. When an Xpress photographer laid his cameras on the concrete for a once-over by a Secret Service dog, he asked what the canine was sniffing for. “Democrats!” replied a passing woman before she and her friend broke out into laughter and walked away.
See an Xpress photo gallery of the event here, and see next week’s paper for more details.
— Brian Postelle, staff writer
I didn’t know that Carl Rove only came in black-n-white.
He looks more sinister that way.
Unlike Mr. Rove, I prefer to fight them over there AND over here. That way we’ll know we really got ’em.