And now after seeing Karl Rove speak at St. Olaf I now know why. Because it would give you the opportunity to fact check everything he said against a balanced perspective. I went to this with Drew and Kevin and we were all hoping for a more disarmed Rove, one who wanted to discuss something. What you got instead was Rove selling a very conservative agenda using cherry picked facts as he does on TV. The thing about cherry picking facts is that its not lying, and Rove is an expert at it and feels no remorse in presenting only one side of an argument using only facts that help justify it instead of the complete set.
I had a question in my head for Karl. What I would ask is the same thing John Stewart once asked of Tucker Carlson (CNN bowtie guy). "John Stewart had a somewhat famous clip last year of you saying 'Tim Kaine is not a good vice presidential candidate because he was mayor of Richmond which is not very big (1 million people).' He follows that with a clip from the following month, 'Sarah Palin is a good vice presidential candidate because she was mayor of the second largest city in Alaska.' John Stewart then points out that Wasilla, AL is actually the 5th largest city in Alaska and has 10,000 people. My question is, aren't you making it harder for a voter to choose a candidate who matches their values when you present the facts in this manner? When you use them in whatever way best helps make your point, independent of what they really say."
The man can stand up there and speak about patriotism, but he will also imply but not state that Al Gore purposely violated the 14th amendment in an attempt to steal Bush's first election. He is careful not to say that Gore did it intentionally. Only to state that it was ruled that his campaign had ended up doing that. The classic "I'm just saying is all" fallacy.
The only thing he said that I believe was an actual lie was that Reagan's Star Wars program bankrupt the Soviet Union. That very morning I had read in the former Chairman of the Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan's book that, "It turns out the Soviets wouldn't even try to keep up with Reagan's program." They were too far gone already. And Greenspan was given a statistical tour of the Soviet economy before and after its fall including meeting with the head central planners themselves. He was asked by Reagan to analyze if Star Wars would have that effect on the USSR. But again quoting him, "We never had a chance to get the answer because Gorbachev came to power and began reforms."
Rove railed on Health Care saying the same conservative complaints you see on TV. Some of which have some merit (more market forces in health care) but he would voice them in a manipulative way. Drew pointed out one instance were he said, "If you believe in the Constitution then...." and proceeded to give a logical fallacy of a second thing you must also agree with, when really, they were independent. I'm pretty sure he covered at least 5 of these fallacies in fact by the time he was done; Propositional fallacies.
He did have some nice stories about his family history and was recently inducted into the Scandinavian Hall of Fame in Minot, ND. A Norwegian ambassador presented him with letters of his great great grandfather refusing the offer from the King of Norway to give up his US citizenship and become an ambassador. There are many Olaf's in his family and the early generations came through and lived in Milwaukee, but the recent generations live in Texas.
I've seen Newt Gingrich speak without selling a one sided agenda using carefully selected facts, maybe Karl Rove will do that someday. Currently though, he's not worth your time.
Bonus Coverage! I Think Therefore's investigative journalists bring you a supporting little known fact. Props to St. Olaf for the quick response.
On Fri, Oct 2, 2009 at 12:17 PM, Joshua Wyatt wrote:
Hello Kyle --
Thanks for writing. The video was available for live viewing, but no archive was made available, per the request of Mr. Rove and his agency. A notice to this effect was posted with every listing of the event in our streaming system, as well as the video player window, and was included in all news stories and press releases from St. Olaf College. Hope this helps -- thank you.
-JDW
--
Joshua Wyatt
Operations Manager | Recording Engineer
Broadcast Media - St. Olaf College
(507) 786-8611
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