On Fox today, Karl Rove said the White House "potentially violated federal law" by sending out an email last week to people who hadn't signed up for such emails.
Over the past week, Fox News and some Republicans have accused the White House of using political groups to gather email addresses, a charge the administration has denied. White House officials have said they only get addresses through their web site, and have blamed third parties for possibly signing people up without their permission.
But Fox, and Rove, are not convinced.
Rove suggested today that a White House staffer may have mined the Internet for email addresses.
"I think they might have somebody in the new media office with a background in Google ... who may know how to do some drift net mining of email addresses and tossing them into the White House email system," Rove said. "And that is frankly a violation of federal law."
He went further, saying the act of sending out a mass email -- in this case promoting health care reform -- counts as advertising and is therefore "a problem" and possibly illegal.
Now, here's the kicker: Rove said that if he had done something like this while working for the Bush administration, he'd have been burned alive. Here it is, in graphic detail:
I'd be on a cart, being dragged down Pennsylvania Avenue on a bunch of hay and taken to a giant mound of firewood, where I'd be tied to a post and Nancy Pelosi would take a lighted pitch and thrown it onto the firewood if I had done this. ... This is amazing to me, what these people are able to get away with. If the Bush White House had done this, you're right, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi would have had me out for a little barbecue on the National Mall and I would be the meal.
Last night, the White House announced changes to its email policy to make it both more secure and easier to opt out. It also disabled flag@whitehouse.gov, which conservative critics claimed amounted to collecting an "enemies list," which even President Obama himself denied.


fbacon2
August 18, 2009 4:49 PM
I'll take that offer. Anyone have a stake handy?
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nyjosh
August 18, 2009 5:03 PM
Give me a break... Rove violated federal law and then refused to comply with several subpeonas from congressional investigations. He was untouchable for the past 8 years. How short are these peoples memories? Or do they just live in a different reality than the rest of us?
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klg19
August 18, 2009 5:04 PM
"If"? "Would be"? He did and he was.
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TJF
August 18, 2009 5:05 PM
Rove's brain = irony-free zone
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brianm0122
August 18, 2009 5:08 PM
Same old Rove policy, paint your enemy with your crimes.
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ABrod
August 18, 2009 5:13 PM
Please.
No more Rove.
Who cares what he says?
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commie atheist
August 18, 2009 5:20 PM in reply to ABrod
The entire American media apparatus, for starters.
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checkbook
August 18, 2009 5:15 PM
Pot meet Kettle
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fcleff
August 18, 2009 5:18 PM
Hmmm...Let's see here. I get an email from the Obama PAC or some form of Obama support group. I didn't sign up to be on this email list. Lucky for me I have this handy little key on my computer that is labeled "delete". Voila! No more email. See how easy that was. I didn't even have to read the silly little thing.
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greylox
August 18, 2009 5:19 PM
**Time for your trial, Karl. Past time, actually.
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commie atheist
August 18, 2009 5:20 PM
Rove suggested today that a White House staffer may have mined the Internet for email addresses.
Well, yeah, we know all about how Bush mined the internet and collected data on American citizens under the pretext of looking for terrorists...
Oh, wait, he's talking about the current president? Never mind.
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714Day
August 18, 2009 6:24 PM in reply to commie atheist
Telling line from doughboy re: data mining since this has been his schtick for almost 40 years. Here is the young criminal in training at the beginning of the computer age whilst under the tutelage of Jeb (first to plead guilty in Watergate) Magruder. If you can stand the sight of pudly as a youngster, give it a look. Karl appears toward the end of the report from 1972 after the section that discusses that potential contributors to the RNC are garnered from a stunning array of sources, including those who order Omaha Steaks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HPnW4EBed4
Rove is, of course, the same guy who thought it wise to tap the rosters of conservative churches for possible donors during his own reign in the WH.
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fcleff
August 18, 2009 5:21 PM
I forgot to say: I wish that I had a delete button for an illegal war and invasion, the worst recession in my lifetime, politicized firings of attorneys...what else am I forgetting? Oh, yeah, a stolen election in 2000.
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jeffgee
August 18, 2009 6:17 PM in reply to fcleff
It all started there.
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CranialRectalLoopback
August 18, 2009 5:23 PM
Can we "death panel" this useless piece of human excrement?
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Clavis
August 18, 2009 5:23 PM
They didn't have to have an email address, Karl. They just collected all of OUR emails and didn't tell anyone about it.
Karl Rove, Rush Limbaugh and Tom Delay: the Republican's answer to Obama are the three sickest people in the country. Yay!
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AnswerFrog
August 18, 2009 5:23 PM
Was that an offer??
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tpmgary
August 18, 2009 5:25 PM
Wow. Karl Rove pointing the finger at someone else for politicizing the White House? He practically has leg-irons on for what he's done.
Rove. Architect of the Republican minority. Didn't get Bush elected the first time. (Bush was appointed.) And had to steal the election for Bush the second time.
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NotFooledByDistractions
August 18, 2009 5:25 PM
Sad part is, the mouth-breathers that watch Fox will believe every word that comes from that weasels mouth.
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Scottsdalian
August 18, 2009 5:30 PM
Aw what the heck - let's burn him at the stake anyway!
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commie atheist
August 18, 2009 5:32 PM in reply to Scottsdalian
Seconded.
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JoshQuasimoto
August 18, 2009 5:31 PM
Doesn't the newly released investigations into the politicization of the DOJ under GW Bush confirm that in fact Karl Rove did politicize the justice department? We know for fact that Karl Rove and the rest of the executive used their ties to op-ed writers to craft language that supporters would use to bombard the airwaves of the MSM. He and his resume show exactly what kind of politicization Karl Rove has accomplished. This is pure chutzpah!
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commie atheist
August 18, 2009 5:34 PM in reply to JoshQuasimoto
It's called projecting your own worst offenses onto your opponents. It's what they do. And the media lets them get away with it, again and again.
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Kevin Cassidy
August 18, 2009 5:38 PM
OK, let's say Rove has it right. Its hard for me to imagine that this is a very big deal and it is certainly not "lobbying" s Rove refers to it.
Most simply, Axelrod's e-mail explained the advantages of Health Care reform. If Fox and the other canines want to run with this, Gibbs and the west wing needs to repeat the message in the e-mail every time the matter comes up.
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Winski
August 18, 2009 5:48 PM
So Karl, when can we anticipate the fire starting part for your BBQ ?? At the stake is far to good for you scum bag...Ooops, I should have used the correct term - turd blossom....
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jsg73
August 18, 2009 5:51 PM
ummmm, roasted pork
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kevbo
August 18, 2009 5:54 PM
Karl,
We dasn't need no wood, greazy ones like ya'll burn jes' fine widout kindlin'.
Isq73....I'd have that meat tested for Spongeform Encephlitis before I breathed the smoke coming off it, much less put it in my mouth.
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FlownOver
August 18, 2009 5:54 PM
We already know this guy's a lying slimebucket. Why do you think we care what he says?
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Publius Lepidus
August 18, 2009 6:02 PM
A new definition of chutzpah and a very good one at that. Turd Blossom continues to brighten my day. He is such a hypocritical POS that he beggars the imagination.
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714Day
August 18, 2009 6:06 PM
From his lips to God's ears about the burning at the stake bit because NOBODY can politicize the White House the way TurdBlossom did from his Batcave.
Weasel Rove, (Permanent Republican Majority Pointman) is living proof that a power player can do what they damned well please and skip away.
Oh, I get so angry thinking about this vile, hypocritical, bag of dung.
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traitorjoe
August 18, 2009 6:11 PM
Sounds like he's begging to be arrested for all his crimes with the U.S. attorneys and other violations. Eric Holder, you awake?
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jeffgee
August 18, 2009 6:15 PM
Where's my Zippo?
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VivaAmerica!
August 18, 2009 6:17 PM
Rove, Rove, Rove is on fire! We don't need no water let that mother - f'er burn!
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InBrooklyn
August 18, 2009 6:18 PM
In 2002 this disgusting piece of filth politicized the run up to our criminal invasion of Iraq in order to intimidate the spineless members of Congress to vote for the AUMF. People are DEAD, thousands of people, because of this horrendous inhumane being. Would that Pelosi and Reid HAD hauled this pig out of town on a cart. I think that's what he is ultimately asking for. He's just squealing away, wondering and waiting for the time when the inevitable will happen, when SOMEONE, ANYONE will do him the favor of putting him out of his obvious misery.
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texastwostep
August 18, 2009 6:21 PM
It sounds like a really weird fantasy. Weird for us, not for him!
My dreams are never this active or vivid!
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traitorjoe
August 18, 2009 6:22 PM
If they finally arrest him he will probably giggle and smirk in his feminine style and say, "What took you so long?"
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MAX TARDCORE
August 18, 2009 6:23 PM
Water-head!
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EH
August 18, 2009 6:25 PM
So he's saying he'd be treated like Joe Wilson.
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Ripper McCord
August 18, 2009 6:30 PM
Karl will never burn at the stake. He will be slow roasted on a rusty rotisserie for 9,345,234,947.38 years over a supernova by two demon chefs with a taste for lots of salt and feces.
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FredB
August 18, 2009 6:44 PM
Ya know, some of are sounding like them with the hate speech. I detest everything that Rove is and stands for but I refuse to get down to their level. But maybe that's why Obama is loosing ground.... he doesn't want to get dirty. What a sad state of affairs.
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dougom
August 18, 2009 6:46 PM
If only, Karl; if only.
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nfbloch
August 18, 2009 6:49 PM
I'd say Rove's in trouble if he's hollering about "politicizing". Shoe about to drop? That would be my guess. Bet he starts using it over and over and gets Fox News ranting about it so when the truth comes out about his role in attorney firings, he's covered.
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RetiredDem
August 18, 2009 6:50 PM
"I'd be on a cart, being dragged down Pennsylvania Avenue on a bunch of hay and taken to a giant mound of firewood, where I'd be tied to a post and Nancy Pelosi would take a lighted pitch and thrown it onto the firewood...."
From your lips to God's ear, Karl.
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Pop Zeus
August 18, 2009 6:55 PM
Actually this is pretty funny. The long list of Rove's misdeeds while in office didn't result in Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid doing much of anything. Ol' Turd Blossom's really scraping the bottom of the barrel. Too bad the Fox faithful will believe anything they hear from their side.
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here4tehbeer
August 18, 2009 6:57 PM
"... a background in Google"?
Somebody needs to send this clown an Internet and set him straight.
Then send indictments.
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MarinCoUSA
August 18, 2009 7:08 PM
Projection! Projection! Projection!
Each week's column in WSJ; projection.
Each appearance on FAUX; projection.
- desperately hope for the day I can raise a glass to celebrate the Great Frog March Day of the criminal at large.
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NuttyProf
August 18, 2009 7:31 PM
I have a background in the Google and all internet traditions
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jeffreydj
August 18, 2009 7:35 PM
It's a tough concept to wrap the head around: Barbecuing a turd blossom. Whatever would you have in the end? Would you sauce it, or dry rub it?
The aroma alone sounds like a Mall-clearer. With such a display of apparent antipathy to foodstuffs, how did Rove ever become so obese, anyway? Or are turd blossoms all volume, little mass?
Stick a fork in him when he's done, but you'll want to tie that fork to a pole much longer than ten feet.
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Cal Damage
August 19, 2009 2:01 AM
Anyone notice his using a technical term for a specific data-mining technique, unique to e-mail source material:
"...who may know how to do some drift net mining of email addresses.."?
Paging AG Holder! Paging AG Holder!
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