https://www.emptywheel.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Logo-Web.png00emptywheelhttps://www.emptywheel.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Logo-Web.pngemptywheel2006-01-20 18:35:002006-01-20 18:35:00Is There Any Doubt Rove Wrote the OBL Talking Point?
Anonymous says:
Interesting in context: of the 4 top issues, only one is a GOP issue. And the GOP is at risk of alienating their own supporters. So, time to g0o to the well and drag out the WoTâ„¢
Anonymous says:
Yeah, go with the remaining thing you can win on … But damn. We got an OBL tape and a Zawahiri tape in three days (which is a bit of a concern, because increased frequency of tapes are tied to hits, aren’t they?)
When are the sheeple going to figure out the WOT isn’t working?
Anonymous says:
It might just make them break, pointing out the strings pulling their mouths. Problem is, I just can’t figure out how we’re going to get Joe Biden or Joe Lieberman to go along, ask the obvious questions.
There are no grown-ups — we’re on our own here. A video playing all the talking heads and their talking points, back to back, (a la The Daily Show) would be the clearest (and funniest) way to show the puppet strings. Help me get the video of each, I’ll see what I can cobble together.
Anonymous says:
~pockets
You’re talking of the OBL comments, or the Blowhard Joes?
Anonymous says:
the OBL comments, I think. I haven’t been watching these shows, so I’m going by you. But the back-to-back edit has been a great weapon against the carefully scripted talking point in the past — probably the only good one we have. (That’s not we-Democrats, that’s we people who want to see honest thoughts over scripted talking points.) If you notice a half dozen or so pundits saying the same phrase, splice them together in a loop. Damned if it doesn’t deflate their credibility quicker than you can say â€Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism.â€
Anonymous says:
Last night on Lehrer, an Arabist stated that OBL’s comments sounded like they had been written in English first and then translated. He also noted that OBL failed to include any Koranic verse–something that he had always done in the past. The expert didn’t seem to suggest that the tape was fake, but for me, it was a thing that made me go â€Hmmmm…
MAMOUN FANDY: Right, but this particular tape is not terribly inspiring, just looking at the language of it. This is the first tape of bin Laden that has no single verse from the Koran. It does not have the flowery language of Arabic.
It seems to me that it is written in English first, and then translated into Arabic. It is very western style of tape. It is not very characteristic of bin Laden, at least it tells me that the non-Arabic speaking within the al-Qaida network are taking over the organization —
JIM LEHRER: You mean he didn’t write this is what you are suggesting?
MAMOUN FANDY: The Arabic speakers in al-Qaida, the parts that are coming from the Arab world, are losing to the non-Arabic speaker, so it’s really becoming more of a South Asian organization, rather than an Arab organization.
JIM LEHRER: Do you read it the same?
PAUL PILLAR: — which may reflect his physical situation somewhere along that frontier between Pakistan and Afghanistan where possibly his immediate entourage — his staff, if you will are Urdu speakers or Pashtu speakers, rather than Arabic speakers, or at least part of them are.
Anonymous says:
Just Me
I have yet to hear anyone else mention that in this tape he is wearing the same gold gown he wore in the tape just before the election. Both of which stink. You don’t wear–or even own–gold gowns if you’re huddled on the border somewhere in Pakistan.
I’ve been waiting to see what Juan Cole says about it (he’s traveling right now, apparently). Recall that the Zawahiri/Zarqawi letter has signs of being fake, too (again, according to Cole, as well as others).
Anonymous says:
â€Is there any doubt Rove wrote the OBL talking point?†Not in my mind.
Anonymous says:
â€sheeple?â€
Anyway, I agree with most of what you say. I like Empty’s gimmick.
But the way forward is easier than some psople suppose.
Dem leaders need to forget the polls, or the likely polls in the future, and calmly tell the truth.
Simply — without 29 clauses.
Over, and over, and over, and over.
If you do not rattle, and if you speak like an adult, then over time, you will gain credibility.
And you will help promote better policy.
Trust the people.
Too many people in DC spend all their time outsmarting themselves.
Anonymous says:
I have yet to hear anyone else mention that in this tape he is wearing the same gold gown he wore in the tape just before the election.
Am I missing something? I thought this was an audio-only tape.
I don’t know that Fandy or Pillar were suggesting or even contemplating that the tape from OBL was fake, just that perhaps the different diction might suggest a shift in the center of power in AQ. Or something.
We’ve got to get beyond refuting the individual insinuations and instead start attacking the underlying system that produces them.
Boy, you can say that again. We concentrate so much on what a con Bush, et. al. are pulling on the people who voted for him/them that we ignore the con on us, which is, if anything, bigger. Rove plays the dems – and many of us progressives – like a cheap banjo. He knows just what kind of reaction he’ll get every time. As long as we’re being outraged, we’re reacting rather than acting. Just what they want. Think about it: how many outrages has the Mighty Wurlitzer spewed in recent years? So many you can’t keep them all in your head! Tired of that particularly outrage? Here’s a fresh one. As I say, the reactions are predictable: either wimpiness, or the kind of anger which is not disciplined or self-possessed. Reaction. God, I’m sick of it.
I volunteered for John Edwards during the caucuses/primaries before ’04, and, once I got to IA, was delighted to learn what the campaign’s internal motto was: ACT, DON’T REACT. Edwards almost beat Kerry in IA – despite having very little money and no institutional support – and probably would’ve beat Bush in the General, and it was the attitudinal difference which mattered. I don’t mean this to be a commercial for Edwards so much as a plea for the ’smart guys’ in the Party to learn from the new crop of people – people like him, and Obama and Schweitzer, and others, no doubt. Voters care about character more than every specific stand on issues, and I think that’s more true now than it ever was, although this is hardly new. Someone with character tends to assert/attack rather than defend, and do it with unflappable self-assurance, with calm, not with either flailing anger or wimpy defensiveness.
Rove is his own cautionary tale, his own object lesson. He has promulgated a weird variant of the old Groucho Marx paradox, basically saying that Democrats aren’t fit to lead if they can’t beat the kind of con he himself is pulling. Whether we like it or not, whether we think it’s ’fair’ or not, he’s right, unfortunately. It’s a psych-out. Enough!
Anonymous says:
We ought to be repaying Karl a bit in kind. â€If Bush is so great on Terrorism, Why is Bin Laden still climbing mountains in the Pakistan Tribal Areas?â€
We really need to respond to Rove’s contention that Democrats do not understand the minds of Terrorists or the dangers of the world today — by pointing out that Republicans apparently learned a lot about these topics out on the golf course with Abramoff in Scotland. We’ve got to put them down with the content of their corrupt culture.
Just slightly suggestive jokes are in order. For instance, what does a young Republican Man say to his date if he want’s her to come up to his apartment for a nightcap?
â€Would you like to come up and see my Earmarks?â€
I think there are some real possibilities in the day trading that was going on, apparently, in DeLay’s Capitol Office based on Political Intelligence. I haven’t figured out the words yet — but the â€crime†is what Martha Stewart went to Camp Cupcake for last year… a version of insider trading.
Anonymous says:
more on Karl’s master plan here. it’s 2002 redux, and they’ll do it until it stops working.
Anonymous says:
And in that story, notice Dean’s shaggy dog (albeit true) defense: The only reason Rove is saying anything is because he wasn’t fired because the pres broke his pledge, because..etc. How about: WHY IS OBL STILL AT LARGE?!
DUH!
Anonymous says:
Dean’s shaggy dog (albeit true) defense
I’m guessing they may have polling that says corruption is a stronger issue for Dems than failing to get OBL. (â€Who do you think would do a better job of [ending corruption/catching Osama], Reps or Dems?â€) But I totally agree with you in principle.
Anonymous says:
i like the tenor of sara’s comment above.
even before i read it, i was thinking, it really is time to quite treating rove like some potent bogeyman.
rove is, in truth and in fact, and despite all p.r. to the contrary, a singularly incompetent presidential adviser. he is (in conjuction with bush’s inherent unsuitabliity for the job of president) personally responsible for the administration’s horrendous five year failure of husbandry –
in rove’s tenure,
american society has not progressed, has failed to thrive, in terms of
environmental problems it faces,
security problems it faces,
fiscal problems it faces,
scientific opportunities available to it,
population health and aging problems facing it,
elections and inclusive participation in elections.
feel free to add to the list; each item is an arrow in our quiver. but we will need lots of fletchers because we must launch flights of these arrows –
against rove the presidential adviser,
and against the bush administration in general.
with respect to rove’s latest pronounements,
it’s the same old baloney. rove is a one trick pony.
the only political tactic he knows is to employ a highly emotional issue (gay marriage, terrrorism, soldiers’ risks, an opponent’s sexuality, sexual deviancy, or courage) and use it to cloud discussion and debate on that issue and,
and this is important,
to preclude debate on other issues.
that is precisely what is happening now. this rovian fatwah on fact and reasoned debate is being launched now in order to set the terms of discussion off the 2006 congressional elections.
the antidote to this poison?
fact, and repetition of fact. flights of fact.
where do i go first on the web-log-world in the morning?
to â€think progressâ€.
fact, and repetition.
and by the way, has anyone observed instances in which rove was personally held accountable for administration failures? i haven’t.
it’s time he was.
fact, repetition of fact, humor, and ridicule applied to bush’s rasputin (my apologies to the demented monk).
i could go on, but this is long-winded enough, metaphors are falling all over each other, and i need my second glass of iced tea.
Anonymous says:
and
jwp above says what i am trying to say
but says it much more succinctly
defeating bush and what he stands for, rove included, really is fairly simple
as long as we dont act like darzee the taylor bird and become mesmerized by the cobra.
Anonymous says:
I don’t know about the authenticity of the tape, but the CIA sure vouched for it pretty quickly.
Anonymous says:
I have some basic questions about OBL’s MO,to wit:
1.Why does a man on the run publicize his whereabouts by sending tapes at the most opportune times?
2.Why are the tapes always deposited at Al Jazeera?
3. For someone whose threats have been apparently defanged for nearly four and a half years, Mr.OBL doth protest too much,IMO.
I would venture to guess that the tapes from OBL are part of Rumsfeld/Poindexter’s Full Spectrum Dominance mirage.OBL’s messages are irrelevant to the main idea that Rumsfeld/Poindexter wants us to believe that he is lurking out there somewhere ready to strike like Jason in the slasher movies.
Interesting in context: of the 4 top issues, only one is a GOP issue. And the GOP is at risk of alienating their own supporters. So, time to g0o to the well and drag out the WoTâ„¢
Yeah, go with the remaining thing you can win on … But damn. We got an OBL tape and a Zawahiri tape in three days (which is a bit of a concern, because increased frequency of tapes are tied to hits, aren’t they?)
When are the sheeple going to figure out the WOT isn’t working?
It might just make them break, pointing out the strings pulling their mouths. Problem is, I just can’t figure out how we’re going to get Joe Biden or Joe Lieberman to go along, ask the obvious questions.
There are no grown-ups — we’re on our own here. A video playing all the talking heads and their talking points, back to back, (a la The Daily Show) would be the clearest (and funniest) way to show the puppet strings. Help me get the video of each, I’ll see what I can cobble together.
~pockets
You’re talking of the OBL comments, or the Blowhard Joes?
the OBL comments, I think. I haven’t been watching these shows, so I’m going by you. But the back-to-back edit has been a great weapon against the carefully scripted talking point in the past — probably the only good one we have. (That’s not we-Democrats, that’s we people who want to see honest thoughts over scripted talking points.) If you notice a half dozen or so pundits saying the same phrase, splice them together in a loop. Damned if it doesn’t deflate their credibility quicker than you can say â€Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism.â€
Last night on Lehrer, an Arabist stated that OBL’s comments sounded like they had been written in English first and then translated. He also noted that OBL failed to include any Koranic verse–something that he had always done in the past. The expert didn’t seem to suggest that the tape was fake, but for me, it was a thing that made me go â€Hmmmm…
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb….._1-19.html
—-
MAMOUN FANDY: Right, but this particular tape is not terribly inspiring, just looking at the language of it. This is the first tape of bin Laden that has no single verse from the Koran. It does not have the flowery language of Arabic.
It seems to me that it is written in English first, and then translated into Arabic. It is very western style of tape. It is not very characteristic of bin Laden, at least it tells me that the non-Arabic speaking within the al-Qaida network are taking over the organization —
JIM LEHRER: You mean he didn’t write this is what you are suggesting?
MAMOUN FANDY: The Arabic speakers in al-Qaida, the parts that are coming from the Arab world, are losing to the non-Arabic speaker, so it’s really becoming more of a South Asian organization, rather than an Arab organization.
JIM LEHRER: Do you read it the same?
PAUL PILLAR: — which may reflect his physical situation somewhere along that frontier between Pakistan and Afghanistan where possibly his immediate entourage — his staff, if you will are Urdu speakers or Pashtu speakers, rather than Arabic speakers, or at least part of them are.
Just Me
I have yet to hear anyone else mention that in this tape he is wearing the same gold gown he wore in the tape just before the election. Both of which stink. You don’t wear–or even own–gold gowns if you’re huddled on the border somewhere in Pakistan.
I’ve been waiting to see what Juan Cole says about it (he’s traveling right now, apparently). Recall that the Zawahiri/Zarqawi letter has signs of being fake, too (again, according to Cole, as well as others).
â€Is there any doubt Rove wrote the OBL talking point?†Not in my mind.
â€sheeple?â€
Anyway, I agree with most of what you say. I like Empty’s gimmick.
But the way forward is easier than some psople suppose.
Dem leaders need to forget the polls, or the likely polls in the future, and calmly tell the truth.
Simply — without 29 clauses.
Over, and over, and over, and over.
If you do not rattle, and if you speak like an adult, then over time, you will gain credibility.
And you will help promote better policy.
Trust the people.
Too many people in DC spend all their time outsmarting themselves.
I have yet to hear anyone else mention that in this tape he is wearing the same gold gown he wore in the tape just before the election.
Am I missing something? I thought this was an audio-only tape.
I don’t know that Fandy or Pillar were suggesting or even contemplating that the tape from OBL was fake, just that perhaps the different diction might suggest a shift in the center of power in AQ. Or something.
We’ve got to get beyond refuting the individual insinuations and instead start attacking the underlying system that produces them.
Boy, you can say that again. We concentrate so much on what a con Bush, et. al. are pulling on the people who voted for him/them that we ignore the con on us, which is, if anything, bigger. Rove plays the dems – and many of us progressives – like a cheap banjo. He knows just what kind of reaction he’ll get every time. As long as we’re being outraged, we’re reacting rather than acting. Just what they want. Think about it: how many outrages has the Mighty Wurlitzer spewed in recent years? So many you can’t keep them all in your head! Tired of that particularly outrage? Here’s a fresh one. As I say, the reactions are predictable: either wimpiness, or the kind of anger which is not disciplined or self-possessed. Reaction. God, I’m sick of it.
I volunteered for John Edwards during the caucuses/primaries before ’04, and, once I got to IA, was delighted to learn what the campaign’s internal motto was: ACT, DON’T REACT. Edwards almost beat Kerry in IA – despite having very little money and no institutional support – and probably would’ve beat Bush in the General, and it was the attitudinal difference which mattered. I don’t mean this to be a commercial for Edwards so much as a plea for the ’smart guys’ in the Party to learn from the new crop of people – people like him, and Obama and Schweitzer, and others, no doubt. Voters care about character more than every specific stand on issues, and I think that’s more true now than it ever was, although this is hardly new. Someone with character tends to assert/attack rather than defend, and do it with unflappable self-assurance, with calm, not with either flailing anger or wimpy defensiveness.
Rove is his own cautionary tale, his own object lesson. He has promulgated a weird variant of the old Groucho Marx paradox, basically saying that Democrats aren’t fit to lead if they can’t beat the kind of con he himself is pulling. Whether we like it or not, whether we think it’s ’fair’ or not, he’s right, unfortunately. It’s a psych-out. Enough!
We ought to be repaying Karl a bit in kind. â€If Bush is so great on Terrorism, Why is Bin Laden still climbing mountains in the Pakistan Tribal Areas?â€
We really need to respond to Rove’s contention that Democrats do not understand the minds of Terrorists or the dangers of the world today — by pointing out that Republicans apparently learned a lot about these topics out on the golf course with Abramoff in Scotland. We’ve got to put them down with the content of their corrupt culture.
Just slightly suggestive jokes are in order. For instance, what does a young Republican Man say to his date if he want’s her to come up to his apartment for a nightcap?
â€Would you like to come up and see my Earmarks?â€
I think there are some real possibilities in the day trading that was going on, apparently, in DeLay’s Capitol Office based on Political Intelligence. I haven’t figured out the words yet — but the â€crime†is what Martha Stewart went to Camp Cupcake for last year… a version of insider trading.
more on Karl’s master plan here. it’s 2002 redux, and they’ll do it until it stops working.
And in that story, notice Dean’s shaggy dog (albeit true) defense: The only reason Rove is saying anything is because he wasn’t fired because the pres broke his pledge, because..etc. How about: WHY IS OBL STILL AT LARGE?!
DUH!
Dean’s shaggy dog (albeit true) defense
I’m guessing they may have polling that says corruption is a stronger issue for Dems than failing to get OBL. (â€Who do you think would do a better job of [ending corruption/catching Osama], Reps or Dems?â€) But I totally agree with you in principle.
i like the tenor of sara’s comment above.
even before i read it, i was thinking, it really is time to quite treating rove like some potent bogeyman.
rove is, in truth and in fact, and despite all p.r. to the contrary, a singularly incompetent presidential adviser. he is (in conjuction with bush’s inherent unsuitabliity for the job of president) personally responsible for the administration’s horrendous five year failure of husbandry –
in rove’s tenure,
american society has not progressed, has failed to thrive, in terms of
environmental problems it faces,
security problems it faces,
fiscal problems it faces,
scientific opportunities available to it,
population health and aging problems facing it,
elections and inclusive participation in elections.
feel free to add to the list;
each item is an arrow in our quiver. but we will need lots of fletchers because we must launch flights of these arrows –
against rove the presidential adviser,
and against the bush administration in general.
with respect to rove’s latest pronounements,
it’s the same old baloney.
rove is a one trick pony.
the only political tactic he knows is to employ a highly emotional issue (gay marriage, terrrorism, soldiers’ risks, an opponent’s sexuality, sexual deviancy, or courage) and use it to cloud discussion and debate on that issue and,
and this is important,
to preclude debate on other issues.
that is precisely what is happening now. this rovian fatwah on fact and reasoned debate is being launched now in order to set the terms of discussion off the 2006 congressional elections.
the antidote to this poison?
fact, and repetition of fact.
flights of fact.
where do i go first on the web-log-world in the morning?
to â€think progressâ€.
fact, and repetition.
and by the way, has anyone observed instances in which rove was personally held accountable for administration failures? i haven’t.
it’s time he was.
fact, repetition of fact, humor, and ridicule applied to bush’s rasputin (my apologies to the demented monk).
i could go on, but this is long-winded enough, metaphors are falling all over each other, and i need my second glass of iced tea.
and
jwp above says what i am trying to say
but says it much more succinctly
defeating bush and what he stands for, rove included, really is fairly simple
as long as we dont act like darzee the taylor bird and become mesmerized by the cobra.
I don’t know about the authenticity of the tape, but the CIA sure vouched for it pretty quickly.
I have some basic questions about OBL’s MO,to wit:
1.Why does a man on the run publicize his whereabouts by sending tapes at the most opportune times?
2.Why are the tapes always deposited at Al Jazeera?
3. For someone whose threats have been apparently defanged for nearly four and a half years, Mr.OBL doth protest too much,IMO.
I would venture to guess that the tapes from OBL are part of Rumsfeld/Poindexter’s Full Spectrum Dominance mirage.OBL’s messages are irrelevant to the main idea that Rumsfeld/Poindexter wants us to believe that he is lurking out there somewhere ready to strike like Jason in the slasher movies.