Rove in Backspin

I don’t know if it's just because Karl Rove's comments came so quickly after the firestorm over Dick Durbin's statements about Guantanamo, but it looks a little to me like the Democrats are fighting back over this (but I'm trying not to get my hopes up too high).

The fact that Rove gave his speech on Wednesday night and here it is Friday evening and we're still talking about it and demanding an apology is wonderful! It's a page right out of the Karl Rove right-wing echo machine playbook. And Dems don't even have their own echo machine!

What makes me optimistic about this (sorry, Stevie T.) is the fact that there's absolutely no chance whatsoever that Rove will apologize. He said exactly what he intended to say, and to some degree, he's getting the reaction he wanted. So the fact that Democrats continue to demand an apology can only mean they want to make the whole thing backfire on Rove (and by extension on all the Bushies). It's nothing but PR! That may not sound so significant in and of itself, but the Republicans have got most of what they hold now based on PR. Limbaugh, along with a good number of the pundits who follow him, claims not to be a politician but an entertainer, and the entertainment he offers is frothy PR. If you spew enough froth at someone or something, it'll ultimately weigh down its target, and that's what’s been happening to Democrats and liberals for several years. But now they're fighting back, and they're proving that their froth can be sticky, too. The latest proof? Asheesh Siddique writes at TAPPED, The American Prospect's blog, that Rick Santorum--religious right matinee idol Rick Santorum!--has distanced himself from Rove's sentiments through his communications director.

If you're in a mood to read, there have been a number of good items about Rove's raw meat for the faithful. Peter Daou, who runs a round up of blog comments (on both left and right) for Salon appears to have started his own blog in the last couple of days and responded to Rove yesterday (scroll down to "Original Post"). Arianna Huffington imagines what next week’s "apology" by Rove will look like. And also at Salon, Joe Conason lists the lies embedded in Rove's statement.