Republicans warn against 2016 strategy that goes overboard on attacking Clintons' political past

[mystery-ak]

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/02/16/republicans-warn-against-2016-strategy-that-goes-overboard-on-attacking/

Republicans warn against 2016 strategy that goes overboard on attacking Clintons' political past
Published February 16, 2014
FoxNews.com

Former Bush administration adviser Karl Rove on Sunday cautioned Republicans against a 2016 presidential election strategy that focuses too much on the political history of potential Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton.

Rove told “Fox News Sunday” he was uncertain whether revisiting Clinton and husband Bill Clinton’s years in the White House would help Republicans win the presidency.

“It may,” said Rove, now a “Fox News” contributor. “But the trouble for Republicans is it’s easier to say what you’re against than what you are for.”

Republicans have tried to knock down a Clinton candidacy essentially since she resigned from her post in February 2013 as secretary of state.

And the campaign appears to have increased in recent weeks with the publication of historical, academic documents portraying her as “ruthless” and  Kentucky GOP Sen. Rand Paul questioning whether former President Clinton should be allowed to return to the White House, considering his behavior with intern Monica Lewinsky.

Also on Sunday, 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney warned against attacking the Clinton political legacy.

"I don't think Bill Clinton is as relevant as Hillary Clinton," he told NBC's "Meet the Press."

This is not the first time Republicans have been targeted for criticizing something or somebody instead of proposing their own ideas, most recently with ObamaCare.

“It’s more important to say what you're for,” Rove continued. “Anyone taking on Hillary Clinton -- Democrat or Republican -- had better focus on what they're for to contrast implicitly against Hillary.”

Still, he argued that Clinton’s roughly four-year tenure as secretary of state is relevant and fair game, particularly her role in the fatal 2012 terror attacks on a U.S. outpost in Benghazi, Libya.

“There are lots of unanswered questions, and they will continue to be an issue,” Rove said. “Families [of the victims] want answers. The questions won’t go away until the questions are answered.”

Ted Strickland, a Democrat and former Ohio governor, said Americans should refer to a bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report that he suggested shows Clinton wasn’t responsible for the security lapses that in part led to the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi.

“This should be about the future and not a rehashing of the past,” said Strickland, who has helped lead the political attack against New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a potential top GOP presidential candidate.

[Rapunzel]

First Romney - now Rove all in the same day.  This from the man who told Bush to sit back and take the attacks from the Democrats........... when most of the GOP wanted Bush to fight back.

What a bunch of coward the GOPe...

[alicewonders]

Sorry to keep posting excerpts from that article you posted the other day Rap - but it was so incredibly informative.  The article is about Grover Norquist and allegations that he has fostered the infiltration of the Muslim Brotherhood into the Republican Party - but it mentions Karl Rove several times and does shed light on Rove's motivations.  Anyway, in regards to the weasel Karl Rove - here is another enlightening tidbit of info:

http://www.gopbriefingroom.com/index.php/topic,129717.msg526451.html#msg526451

"Here’s a picture of that same meeting of the Brotherhood in the Governor’s Mansion in May 2000, with Karl Rove, who was instrumental in making it happen.  At the time, he was the Svengali to George W. Bush’s campaign.  While Suhail Khan was working for RINO Campbell, he was put on the board of the Islamic Free Market Institute.  He was made one of the team members, with Khaled Saffuri — Abdul Rahman Al-Amoudi’s right-hand man, remember, shown here — as the outreach coordinator and his sidekick.  So here they are, lashing up with the President — or the governor, rather, prospective President.

And thanks to Rove, they got George W. Bush, in the course of the second debate with Al Gore — this was the — nobody remembers this debate, of course, for one reason — this is the one where Al Gore kept walking away and doing that alpha male thing in George Bush’s face, remember that?  Yeah, most people do.  Anyway, George Bush, out of the blue, says that if elected he would prohibit the use of secret evidence.  Grover Norquist got that done.  And it was the thing that was going to give them, you know, the Muslim votes.

After the campaign, Suhail Khan gets moved into the White House.  Not paid position; as a full-time volunteer, working in the Office of Public Liaison under Karl Rove.  What was his job?  He was the gatekeeper for the Muslim American community.  Guess who got in the gate?  The Brotherhood.  Guess who didn’t?  Well, people like Zuhdi Jasser and Sheikh Kabbani.

In this role, he played an incalculably important part.  And I’m going to again dwell on this for a minute, just because it’s an influence operation.  It helped with the information dominance — as the military calls it — piece incalculably.  Bush not only made that comment about the Koran being about peace and good, but Islam is a religion of peace.  You heard that?  How about jihad is really just about personal struggle?  Yeah.  And then there’s this — al-Qaeda is hijacking Islam, just as much as it hijacked those planes.  All right, well, they got the President of the United States and his administration to say these sorts of things, in part thanks to the people they were surrounding themselves with."

...snip

"Look, if I had to make a guess, my guess is that it’s like a lot of things in Washington — it was about money.  I think it was about building up a base, an infrastructure, power.  I know for a fact that several other people were involved in sort of getting this thing going — you may have heard of them — in addition to Karl Rove, who was looking for a constituency that we were told — I think I said this at lunch — that was roughly as loyal, and certainly as well-heeled, as Jews have traditionally been for the Democratic Party.

And Jack Abramoff, interestingly enough — Jack was at the time a very successful super-lobbyist.  But he was also a Republican political operative.  He and Rove and Norquist went back to College Republican days together.  And Jack actually told one of my colleagues, who immediately told me, that he had helped cook this thing up as a kind of trifecta."

[Rapunzel]

No need to apologize, Alice. People need to read and comprehend this and understand what is taking place... and that Rove and those of his ilk are not good people with the good of this country foremost in their minds. 

[Rapunzel]

and BTW don't forget there is a McCain, Abramoff and Norquist link that affected the 2008 elections and how McCain ran his race and also testimony before a committee McCain ran in the senate when the GOP was still running the senate.  A lot of people like to mock McCains opponent here in 2010 for the senate race and ignore that McCain had a LOT more dirty dealings with Abramoff than Hayworth ever dreamed of.

[alicewonders]

and BTW don't forget there is a McCain, Abramoff and Norquist link that affected the 2008 elections and how McCain ran his race and also testimony before a committee McCain ran in the senate when the GOP was still running the senate.  A lot of people like to mock McCains opponent here in 2010 for the senate race and ignore that McCain had a LOT more dirty dealings with Abramoff than Hayworth ever dreamed of.

Absolutely right.  It would be fascinating for someone like Glenn Beck to do one of his chalkboard illustrations on connecting the dots in this evil spider web.

[Rapunzel]

Absolutely right.  It would be fascinating for someone like Glenn Beck to do one of his chalkboard illustrations on connecting the dots in this evil spider web.

Agreed......   maybe at some point Laurie Dhue can report on some of this, too.