Former Bush adviser Karl Rove is making the rounds to promote his new book Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight. He landed on NBC‘s Meet the Press yesterday (3/14/10), interviewed by Tom Brokaw. Brokaw asked him about his book’s discussion of the Iraq War:
BROKAW: And in it, you acknowledge when weapons of mass destruction were not found, everyone was startled and not very happy about that. If that had been the case before war began, you couldn’t have gotten congressional authorization.
ROVE: Nor in all likelihood U.N. approval, as we had as well.
BROKAW: Would you have launched the war if you had known there were weapons of mass destruction?
ROVE: Well, as I say in the book, we would not have had either the authorization from Congress nor the U.N., and we probably would have found other ways to constrain his behavior.
There was no U.N. approval for the Iraq War.
The White House always argued that U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441 gave them legal cover for the war, but it did not–it warned of “serious consequences” if Iraq failed to disarm.
As the U.N. weapons inspectors were reportingback from Iraq, the White House was seeking asecond Security Council vote that would have officially sanctioned military action. That effort was unsuccessful, and the U.S./U.K. attack began without that Security Council approval.
This is not ancient history, nor is particularly obscure;coverage of Iraq and the U.N. weapons inspections in early 2003 was fairly intense, and Brokaw’s NBC newscast aired several reports on the U.S. efforts to win U.N. support for a war resolution. (Brokaw himself on March 10, 2003, for example: “Tonight, the French vowed to veto any U.S. war resolution at the U.N., while Secretary of State Powell continued to look for votes and a plan that would allow the United States to go to war with some kind of U.N. approval.”)
Rove undoubtedly knows this history, too. What he’s counting on is that journalists like Brokaw will either not remember these facts, or will be too polite to bring them up.
Last Sunday’s excellent column by Frank Rich addressing the disinformation in Rove’s book –
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/14/opinion/14rich.html
Rove understands every weakness of American journalism and how to exploit them
BROKAW: Would you have launched the war if you had known there were weapons of mass destruction?
If that’s what Brokaw really said Rove couldn’t have asked for better.
I listened to a fresh air interview with this guy and it was clear that he has his own history written regardless of any inconvient facts which might differ from his opinions. To any challege of his spin, he would say that he disaggrees, as if facts were something that, once disaggreed with, are no longer facts. What a clown. No wonder we are in deep doo-doo with this guy and Chaney running our country for 8 years.
Tom Browkaw is a mythologizer not a journalist. Karl Rove must love him.
I’m so sad; I like Tom Brokaw. He seems like such a nice guy. But luckily for me I won’t allow myself to abandon my insistance for accountability in exchange for a little folksy charm. Brokaw’s mental faculties are either in a seriously dangerous stage of devolution or he’s just another sell-out hack journalist.
I didn’t watch this show, but I imagine that at some point there was a commercial break during the Rove interview. Even given the benefit of the doubt and allowing that perhaps Brokaw forgot that the UN didn’t approve the invasion of Iraq (how could a so-called excellent journalist forget something like THAT?!) did Brokaw’s news crew point out during the commercial break that “uh, Mr. Brokaw, the United Nations never approved the invasion of Iraq as Mr. Rove just stated.”?
One of my favorite lines from a movie is when Robert DeNiro tells the nephew of some Nevada politician he was forced to hire that either the kid was in on a money-stealing scheme or too incompetent to realize what was going on, and neither scenario is acceptable. I think that same wise philosophy applies here.
Rove = BAK = Bush’s Ass Kisser
I don’t always think David Gregory is fair — he’s no Tim Russert — but next time David leaves town, get someone besides Brokow. Anyone unable to show Rove for the film-flam artist he is doesn’t belong in journalism, much less on Meet the Press.
I wonder if the criminals who took US to war in Iraq, can be blocked from profiting on that crime?