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Karl Rove: ‘Offended’ by Chrysler Ad

Karl Rove had especially harsh words for Chrysler’s “Halftime” advertisement starring Clint Eastwood. Conceding that “it was an extremely well-done ad,” Rove nevertheless tied it to Obama administration strong-arm tactics. “It is a sign of what happens when you have Chicago-style politics, and the President of the United States and his political minions are, in essence, using our tax dollars to buy corporate advertising,” Rove said. He added that Chrysler executives must have felt it necessary to “repay their political patrons.”

New on The Corner. . .


COMMENTS   26

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 J.R.
   02/06/12 15:25

GOP President bailing out Chrysler using tax-payer dollars = GOOD

Democrat President bailing out Chrysler using tax-payer dollars = BAD

- Karl Rove

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   02/06/12 15:39

When did a Republican president ever bailout Chrysler?

Chrysler was bailed out twice: Once in 2009, by Barack Obama and once in 1980 by Jimmy Carter.

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   02/06/12 16:13

While I'm not a fan of what Bush did, to call that a "bailout" is a bit of stretch, and to compare what Bush did to what Carter and Obama did, is absolutely fallacious.

In the early fall of 2008, the credit markets had all but seized. Chrysler couldn't loan money to any (retail) prospective buyers because no one was buying the paper they had already written. Bush wasn't bailing out Chrysler so much as he was underwriting retail loans to Chrysler customers. A bad idea, to be sure, but it wasn't anywhere close to what would become later.

Barack Obama didn't underwrite retail paper. Instead, he gutted a company of its debt and assumed that debt on behalf of the American public, while he also put unsecured creditors ahead of the secured creditors (bond holders) in order to protect the Unions from the normal bankruptcy process.

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   02/07/12 09:44

Scott wins the first round.

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   02/07/12 10:21

The fact that you had to explain this is just sad. I saw somewhere else the other day some chart about how O had created more jobs than Bush - or something of that slant. Never mind that it is blatantly false, the poster merely saw it (on HuffPo or the like) and instantly liked it bcs it reinforced their belief that D's are good and R' are bad.

Capcha - "forget this". Kind of sounds like an O campaign slogan about the last four years.

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   02/06/12 15:30

They sure didn't feel it necessary to pay back their secured bondholders. 2009, the year contract law was revealed to be at the whim of the emperor du jour.

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   02/06/12 15:31

Using Rove as a Front for the Republican Party is a huge FAIL. It's Mouthpiece-Clowns like him that will help hand the election to Obama.

The guy's a Major League Loser who should stay lost...

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   02/06/12 15:39

The schools are teaching the kids that it's better for all of us when progressive politicians pick the winners and the losers. If you don't have political clout, you lose. That ad last night was addressed to the losers: a pep talk from Clint to make you feel all manly and patriotic about the loss of your freedom.

Many saps swallowed it whole.

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   02/06/12 15:58

The ad was risible. "Nothing to get angry over" as Willard might put it. Detroit ain't coming back and the fate of Fiat-Chrysler is basically irrelevant to anyone not employed in the Beltway-UAW pyramid scheme. I doubt whether it is really relevant to those guys either. For his next trick Barack will cancel all student loan debt and then boast of saving the university business. "It's 5th semester in America," blah blah blah

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 J.R.
   02/06/12 16:27

A bailout is a bailout whether or not it was for "good reasons" or for different "reasons.

The federal government should not, and has no authority to, give tax payer money to private industries.

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Galt's Bain
   02/06/12 16:56

So, Karl Rove, who always fights by the Marquess de Queensbury Rules when it come to politic tactics, is offended? One of the masterminds behind one of the ugliest, dirtiest attacks on a Presidential candidate - the Swift Boat attacks - is "offended" by a soft-focus ad for a car company because it suggests that we might be on the road to economic recovery?

Is this supposed to be satire?

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Palin Fan
   02/07/12 09:52

The Swift Boat Vets are honorable, honest, men who accurately told the truth about a cynical man who manipulated the system to award himself medals.

I guess you liberals support our troops so long as they get in line behind your candidates. I remember how in 2000, your side tried to deny thousands of veterans the right to have their votes counted because you knew that the majority would go to W.

John Kerry, like Ted Kennedy, was a dishonorable man. He deserved to be called out. Those patriots who actually did serve honorably in Vietnam did one more service for their country, instead of fighting the Communists in Northern Vietnam, they fought the ruling class liberals here at home.

You should apologize for having the audacity to take this opportunity to slander, like your side did when they called them baby killers, honorable Vietnam vets who, IMHO, are the real Greatest Generation.

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Mark Barker
   02/07/12 18:03

OK, we get it, you don't like Kerry or Kennedy. You speak of the honor of veterans, yet Karl Rove is the man who unabashedly slimed a triple amputee Vietnam vet (Max Cleland) comparing him to Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. Rove is a reprehensible excuse for a human being -- a person without the slightest shred of honor.

Ol' Turdblossom is "offended" by Americans coming together to make their lives better? Classic Republican nonsense. President Obama does the right thing, supports the auto industry and workers, it succeeds, and the Rove Gang can't stand it. As a result, they attack an actor who has always been a Republican voter (not to mention friends with Saint Reagan) who simply pointed out the success and the quintessential All-American theme of hanging tough and fighting back.
This is what galls the right wing bullies the most. Let us not forget that it was Rove who almost single handedly created these neo-cons and their scorched earth strategies, all while pretending to be above the fray. Rove has done more damage to this country than any terrorist.

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BHunter
   02/07/12 09:59

"Marquess de Queensbury"? Did the Great Scot change his citizenship posthumously and become a Frog?

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Marc Schriftman
   02/06/12 21:39

That ad is so vague and content-free that it serves as nothing but a mirror for the talkers who talk about it. If you're Karl Rove, you see your manufactured, half-real enemies in their shadow cloaks and hooded eyes. Obama is about 3 inches to the left of the last three Republican presidents in meaningful terms and probably to the right of Nixon, but Rove can't see anything outside the warped lens through which pundits - and the bottle boys that believe them - draw irrational analogies between mythic twisters and the mundane happenings of the real world. If you stop thinking of Rove as a 'commentator' and think of him instead as a modern day William S. Burroughs or L. Ron Hubbard, he stops being ridiculous and becomes recognizable as the paranoid, creative genius he's distorted himself into.

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History Buff
   02/06/12 22:01

He smeared McCain in South Carolina in 2000....and he has the gall to claim to be "offended" by an optimistic ad?

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alan borrows
   02/06/12 23:18

I can't believe so many people here are hating the message that Americans will raise together to meet the challenges and to continue to be the greatest nation on earth. Can't believe that some people so openly and sincerely root for the decline of America just to defeat Obama!

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surfcat50
   02/07/12 06:46

The ad was probably meant to put us all on notice that Chrysler will require another bailout in the "second half."

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