Who Ya Gonna Believe?

Today, speaking to Bill O'Reilly on Fox TV, Karl Rove spoke movingly about that compassionate, big hearted Republican galoot running for president, John McCain and his adopted Bangladeshi daughter. I think Karl had to wipe a tear, carefully, because it's been said that Karl Rove's tears can burn through formica fake wood paneling.

"I don’t think people know a lot about him. They don’t know about his views and values that informed him as a young man. They don’t know about what drew him to service in the United States Navy. They don’t know about all of the compelling story about the POW experience that he had. They don’t know what motivated him, but what people and places in Sedona touch his life. Let me give you just one example: I think most of your viewers be shocked to hear the story about Cindy McCain in Bangladesh, visiting an orphanage, and she has a small dying child thrust into her hands and the orphanage…the people in the orphanage say we can’t, we can’t care for her, she’s dying, we don’t know what to do. And Cindy McCain’s impulse was to hold that…hug that child to her chest, get on an airplane and bring her home. When she got off the plane, there was John McCain, and he said, “What do you got?” and she said “I’ve got a child who’s dying, we need to get her help…we need to get her care.” And John said, “Well, who is she going to be staying with?” and Cindy McCain said, “I was hoping that she could stay with us.” And today, that young child–who was near death–is their teenage daughter. I don’t think most people understand the compassion and love that would come from a moment like that. There’s a lot more of John McCain’s story that he needs to tell."

That was today, March 8, 2008, but 8 years ago, in the 2000 Republican Primary Race, Rove invented a uniquely injurious fiction for his operatives to circulate via a phony poll. Voters were asked, “Would you be more or less likely to vote for John McCain…if you knew he had fathered an illegitimate black child?” This was no random slur. McCain was at the time campaigning with his dark-skinned daughter, Bridget, adopted from Bangladesh.

Karl Rove's Tears...Who Ya Gonna Believe?