Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Karl Rove & Co. Are Planning An "October Surprise" To Turn the Election in Romney's Favor


Republican operatives are preparing to unleash an attack that will portray President Obama as weak on national security, according to a report at Salon. The plan is based in part on new intelligence related to the September 11 attacks in Libya that killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens.

GOP insiders reportedly are calling the plan the "Jimmy Carter Strategy" or the "October Surprise." That is a reference to the Iranian hostage crisis that handcuffed incumbent Jimmy Carter in the 1980 presidential election against Ronald Reagan. The insiders hope the strategy will be a game changer as Obama and Mitt Romney prepare for Wednesday night's first presidential debate.

Craig Unger, author of the just-released Boss Rove: Inside Karl Rove's Secret Kingdom of Power, wrote the Salon piece. Unger does not mention Rove by name in the Salon article, but there is little doubt that Rove would be involved in such a high-level Republican plan. From Salon:

According to a highly reliable source, as Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama prepare for the first presidential debate Wednesday night, top Republican operatives are primed to unleash a new two-pronged offensive that will attack Obama as weak on national security, and will be based, in part, on new intelligence information regarding the attacks in Libya that killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens on Sept. 11. 
The source, who has firsthand knowledge of private, high-level conversations in the Romney camp that took place in Washington, D.C., last week, said that at various times the GOP strategists referred to their new operation as the Jimmy Carter Strategy or the October Surprise. 
He added that they planned to release what they hoped would be “a bombshell” that would make Libya and Obama’s foreign policy a major issue in the campaign. “My understanding is that they have come up with evidence that the Obama administration had positive intelligence that there was going to be a terrorist attack . . . ”

Such a plan is dripping with irony, of course. The strategists likely were connected to the George W. Bush administration, which repeatedly ignored warnings about the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The Bushies apparently are not concerned about concepts such as irony or hypocrisy, Unger reports:

The source described the Republicans as chortling with glee that the Obama administration “definitely had intel” about the attack before it happened. “Intelligence can be graded in different ways,” he added, “and sometimes A and B don’t get connected. But [the Romney campaign] will try to paint it to look like Obama had advance knowledge of the attack and is weak on terrorism.” 
He said they were jubilant about their new strategy and said they intended to portray Obama as a helpless, Jimmy Carter-like president and to equate the tragedy in Libya with President Carter’s failed attempt to rescue American hostages in Iran in 1980. “They are so excited about it,” he said. “Over and over again they talked about how it would be just like Jimmy Carter’s failed raid. They feel it is going to give them a last-minute landslide in the election.”

A "last-minute landslide in the election"? Could that really happen? Craig Unger has become an expert on the postmodern machinations of Karl Rove--and his sources say GOP insiders are trying to pull it off.

13 comments:

  1. Hmmm. This adds some intrigue to the debate tomorrow night.

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  2. "... I think Obama’ll have trouble walking into the debate Wednesday because Romney can pepper him with Fast and Furious, the birth certificate etc… I doubt Obama can qualify for the ballot in all the states....

    .. Why not just pull the plug on him with the curse of the 666 Illinois draw in the lottery on Obama’s victory-day: why hold silent about THAT! ....

    .. That’s a heavenly sign sent from the supernatural ....

    Dlwvision Obama 666 Coincidence NOT Lottery = Antichrist

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SY7_vg5RYO4

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  3. Is there a depth to which Karl Rove will not stoop? Is there a depth so low?

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  4. Kind of makes me wonder if the GOP was involved in sparking the attacks themselves.

    A number of reports show this whole deal in Egypt and Libya was not accidental--with the goofy film, and the nutcase preacher in Florida, and other fruits blowing all of this up in the Middle East.

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  5. Putting American lives at risk for political gain? It worked with the original 9/11. Why not try it again?

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  6. "... “One of the misapprehensions of the last decade is that the government had to go outside the law to places like Guantanamo or Bagram to abridge the rights of suspects in the name of national security,” said Jeanne Theoharis, a professor of political science at Brooklyn College who has been an outspoken critic of the rights abridgement occurring in Article III courts. “But this is not the case. A similar degradation of rights that has characterized the prison at Guantanamo has also affected the judicial system within the United States. The right to dissent, the right to see the evidence against you, the right to due process, the right to fair and speedy trial, the right to have a judge who will be impartial, the right to fair and not disproportionate punishment, and the right not to be punished before you are convicted have been taken from us in the name of national security. It is not just in special secret prisons that this occurs, but also—dismayingly—within the U.S. federal courts.”

    "...The Emerging Gulag State: What Is Happening to Muslims Will Happen to the Rest of Us, By Chris Hedges," Global Research, October 02, 2012, TruthDig.com

    RK here, and what I see is the white collar criminals radically rule, Karl Rove, the "Project For A New American Century" clearly we are in the FINAL? level of "them over here" we people are to be worse off than Palestine.

    Key wording: PUBLIC SAFETY and TRANSPORTATION SAFETY.

    There are few to none, "judges" in the U.S. that are not in the tribe of white collar legal crime R.I.C.O. - the ACT has been sanctified as the "PATRIOT."

    Mitt or Obama, "not a dime's worth of difference."

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  7. ... by Aaron Klein operatives who killed U.S. ambassador?

    JERUSALEM – While echoes of the “Fast and Furious” scandal still resound in the White House, another administration decision at the heart of Obama’s Mideast policy may prove even more explosive.

    Almost entirely missing from the debate surrounding the anti-U.S. attacks in Libya is the administration’s policy of arming jihadists to overthrow Mideast governments. But in the case of Libya, the arming of jihadists may have directly resulted in the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks against the U.S. consulate in Benghazi and the subsequent murder of Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, Foreign Service Information Management Officer Sean Smith, private security employees and former U.S. Navy SEALs Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods.

    After changing its story multiple times, the White House finally conceded the deadly assault on the U.S. consulate was a planned attack linked to al-Qaida, as per information released by national intelligence agencies.

    The admission prompted Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., to call for the resignation of U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice for pushing the narrative that the attacks were part of a spontaneous uprising.

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  8. Also, the intimidation to not represent oneself. This is the true failure of our U.S. Constitution's "good law."

    There is no way the system is to function, other than for a very select few that operate "it," when the absolute NONtransparency of: how do the ? legal professionals ? become so rich, "fat cats," in not following the law?

    A. "Lawyers" attend a school that is not an education of what the rule of law and due process is for our genuine system of "checks and balances," but
    B. "Creditors" are the law;
    C. JAILS advertise "sustainable."

    We majority Americans aren't just discouraged to represent pro se, it is as the anon 10:02, 10/2, says and then some.

    Rigging of white collar crime, R.I.C.O., is an agreement amongst the B.A.R. "members," et al.

    People should en mass file against the criminals, demand arrests of the lawyers in contempt of the law.

    What else can we begin as a first step in ridding our fear of self representation.

    Tx LS for your journalism coupled with the legal experience and of all places, in Alabama.

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  9. You might want to tune in to Fox now and see how easy this is going to be...

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  10. David in S. AlabamaOctober 2, 2012 at 2:50 PM

    Two things about Rove: 1.He can stand as tall as he can and walk below a snake's belly. 2. There is nothing he is unwilling to say or do to achieve his objectives.

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  11. ..written by Steve Lendman..

    "... So do Haaretz editorials. On September 30, “Red lines, black portrait” was headlined. Netanyahu was taken to task. Under his leadership, “ultranationalism and the medieval forces of radical Judaism paint a black portrait of Israel.”

    .. His “childish” bomb stunt fell flat. He became a caricature of himself using it. At the same time, he ignored calls for peace with Palestine and normalizing relations with all regional states.

    .. He bragged about Israel’s achievements. He’s allied with extremists in his government and likeminded rabbis. They “deny children the right to a basic education and women (get) relegated to the back of public buses.”

    .. “His MODERN [emphasis added] government denies liberty to another nation.” He “deports refugees, sending them to their deaths.”

    .. He “persecutes human rights organizations and violates academic freedom.” While unjustifiably setting red lines, “one out of three Israeli children goes to sleep under the poverty line, and one out of four Israeli scientists seeks” employment opportunities elsewhere.

    .. His preoccupation with nonexistent threats leaves vital domestic issues unaddressed. His rage for war makes peace unattainable.

    .. Romney is his American counterpart. Both represent real existential threats. Failure to denounce their irresponsibility increases the chance for war. Preventing it is before it starts matters most. Afterwards it’s too late.

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  12. I know all about BosspsychopathRove & the games he plays for keeps:

    David W. Bouchard tells me "I'm digging my own grave" Dec.22,2004.


    Buddy Walker(security for the Va. Pilot) asks me him down at Military Circle Dec.28,2004 which I completely ignore(sounded to much like a set up):

    Jan. 7--NORFOLK, Va. -- Kay Tucker Addis, who has led news coverage of The Virginian-Pilot for the past eight years, and her husband, local columnist Dave Addis, will retire on March 1, publisher D.R. Carpenter III announced Thursday.

    http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-7776279_ITM

    The first e-mail, dated Jan. 6, 2005, is from a White House counsel's office assistant. It indicates that Rove had stopped by that office to ask lawyer David Leitch whether a decision had been made to keep the U.S. attorneys in their jobs. The e-mail does not suggest that Rove advocated one outcome over another.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/14/AR2007031400519_2.html

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  13. This may be the last election where Rove plays a major role. Voter suppression laws have been blocked in battleground states like Pennsylvania, while a major GOP voter registration firm was fired over fraudulent filings in Palm Beach County, FL http://www.sfgate.com/business/bloomberg/article/Republicans-End-Swing-State-Voter-Sign-Up-After-3908692.php?cmpid=twitter

    "Republicans for Obama" is making major inroads in Southern voter suppression states like Florida, North Carolina & Tennessee. Rove blundered by committing funds to ads for Romney which will never air due to lack of TV time while GOP Senate candidates flounder. Karl Rove is getting old & he's suffering from mental slips. Rove is looking like J. Edgar Hoover during Watergate. He's having trouble keeping the team together and it's probably time for him to retire.

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