Leading Democrats reacted furiously on Thursday to remarks by White House adviser Karl Rove suggesting that Democrats had responded to the Sept. 11 attacks by wanting to "prepare indictments and offer therapy," with some calling for him to apologize or resign.
The remarks also rippled through New York political circles, putting two top Republicans, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Governor George Pataki, on the defensive in the state that bore the brunt of the 2001 terror attacks.
Rove made the comments during a fundraiser in Manhattan on Wednesday, saying: "Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 and the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers."
"Conservatives saw what happened to us on 9/11 and said, `We will defeat our enemies,'" Rove continued at a gathering in midtown Manhattan for the Conservative Party of New York State. "Liberals saw what happened to us and said, `We must understand our enemies.'"
cascade of criticism
This led to a cascade of criticism from Democratic lawmakers, particularly in the Senate, where Republicans have sought to put the party on the defensive for days after leading Democratic Senator Richard Durbin compared abusive treatment of terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, with the war crimes of the Nazis and the Khmer Rouge.
"Karl Rove should immediately and fully apologize for his remarks or he should resign," Democratic Senator Harry Reid, the minority leader, said in a statement. "Dividing our country for political gain is an insult to all Americans and to the common memory we all carry with us from that day."
strenuous defense
The White House immediately rejected the Democrats' demands for an apology, offering a strenuous defense of Rove and suggesting that his statements had been taken out of context.
"Karl was simply pointing out the different philosophies and different approaches when it comes to winning the war on terrorism," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.
"If people want to try to engage in personal attacks instead of defending their philosophy, that's their business," McClellan said. "But it's important to point out the different approaches to this when it comes to winning the war on terrorism. That's all he was doing."
A ranking Republican official later argued that Democrats were blowing Rove's comments out of proportion, noting that his comments specifically referred to the post-Sept. 11 positions of Web site MoveOn.org, filmmaker Michael Moore and Democratic Party chairman Howard Dean, not congressional Democrats or the party itself.
The back and forth over Rove's comments came after Republicans spent days pummeling Durbin for likening US mistreatment of detainees to the acts of "Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime -- Pol Pot or others -- that had no concern for human beings."
PHISHING: The con might appear convincing, as the scam e-mails can coincide with genuine messages from Apple saying you have run out of storage For a while you have been getting messages from Apple saying “your iCloud storage is full.” They say you have exceeded your storage plan, so documents are no longer being backed up, and photos you take are not being uploaded. You have been resisting Apple’s efforts to get you to pay a minimum of ￡0.99 (US$1.33) a month for more storage, but it seems that you cannot keep putting off the inevitable: You have received an e-mail which says your iCloud account has been blocked, and your photos and videos would be deleted very soon. To keep them you need
For two decades, researchers observed members of the Ngogo chimpanzee group of Kibale National Park in Uganda spend their days eating fruits and leaves, resting, traveling and grooming in their tropical rainforest abode, but this stable community then fractured and descended into years of deadly violence. The researchers are now describing the first clearly documented example of a group of wild chimpanzees splitting into two separate factions, with one launching a series of coordinated attacks against the other. Adult males and infants were targeted, with 28 deaths. “Biting, pounding the victim with their hands, dragging them, kicking them — mostly adult males,
The Israeli military has demolished entire villages as part of its invasion of south Lebanon, rigging homes with explosives and razing them to the ground in massive remote detonations. The Guardian reviewed three videos posted by the Israeli military and on social media, which showed Israel carrying out mass detonations in the villages of Taybeh, Naqoura and Deir Seryan along the Israel-Lebanon border. Lebanese media has reported more mass detonations in other border villages, but satellite imagery was not readily available to verify these claims. The demolitions came after Israeli Minister of Defense Israel Katz called for the destruction of
SUPERFAN: The Japanese PM played keyboard in a Deep Purple tribute band in middle school and then switched to drums at university, she told the British rock band Legendary British rock band Deep Purple yesterday made Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s day with a brief visit to their high-profile superfan as they returned to the nation they first toured more than half a century ago. Takaichi’s reputation as an amateur drummer, and a fan of hard rock and heavy metal has been well documented, and she has referred to Deep Purple as one of her favorite bands along with the likes of Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden. “You are my god,” a giddy Takaichi said in English to Deep Purple drummer Ian Paice, presenting him with a set of made-in-Japan
RSS