Karl Rove: 2000 v. 2008

2000: On the Bush Campaign Trail

Rove invented a uniquely injurious fiction for his operatives to circulate via a phony poll. Voters were asked, "Would you be more or less likely to vote for John McCain ... if you knew he had fathered an illegitimate black child?" This was no random slur. McCain was at the time campaigning with his dark-skinned daughter, Bridget, adopted from Bangladesh.

It worked. Owing largely to the Rove-orchestrated whispering campaign, Bush prevailed in South Carolina and secured the Republican nomination. The rest is history - specifically the tragic and blighted history of our young century. It worked in another way as well. Too shaken to defend himself, McCain emerged from the bruising episode less maverick reformer and more Manchurian candidate.

Sourced: Here and Here. (The last bit is particularly worth reading lest one forget how Rove works.)

2008: On The O'Reilly Factor

"I don’t think people know a lot about him. They don’t know about his views and values that informed him as a young man. They don’t know about what drew him to service in the United States Navy. They don’t know about all of the compelling story about the POW experience that he had. They don’t know what motivated him, but what people and places in Sedona touch his life. Let me give you just one example: I think most of your viewers be shocked to hear the story about Cindy McCain in Bangladesh, visiting an orphanage, and she has a small dying child thrust into her hands and the orphanage…the people in the orphanage say we can’t, we can’t care for her, she’s dying, we don’t know what to do. And Cindy McCain’s impulse was to hold that…hug that child to her chest, get on an airplane and bring her home. When she got off the plane, there was John McCain, and he said, “What do you got?” and she said “I’ve got a child who’s dying, we need to get her help…we need to get her care.” And John said, “Well, who is she going to be staying with?” and Cindy McCain said, “I was hoping that she could stay with us.” And today, that young child–who was near death–is their teenage daughter. I don’t think most people understand the compassion and love that would come from a moment like that. There’s a lot more of John McCain’s story that he needs to tell."

My comment:

Obviously Republican Family Values at work ... or as Richard Nixon would have it, "situational ethics".