9/11, 4:51p: Karl Rove is denying he advised Komen’s Nancy Brinker to reinstate funding to Planned Parenthood. He told The Daily Caller that Karen Handel’s portrayal is “not accurate” but wouldn’t elaborate.
9/10, 2:36p: I have received assurances from a source close to him that Karl Rove is pro-life.
Many may have already assumed this, since Rove worked a heartbeat away from the most pro-active pro-life president our country has seen since President Reagan, although those sleeping a heartbeat away from both, Laura Bush and Nancy Reagan, were pro-abortion. So osmosis is no guarantee.
But Rove did speak at the National Right to Life Convention in 2008, which gave him street cred.
That said, at best Karl Rove is a fair weather friend.
Before I get to Todd Akin and Caroline Kennedy, I want to quote from Karen Handel’s book, Planned Bullyhood, scheduled for release tomorrow.
Backdrop: Susan G. Komen for the Cure CEO Nancy Brinker (pictured right) had decided to cave to Planned Parenthood’s demand that it reinstate grants, and Handel was Komen’s Senior Vice President of Public Policy…
I just said, “You don’t have to apologize to me. But I have to say again that it is a huge mistake. Wait through the weekend. It’s Super Bowl weekend. We know there are op-eds teed up about how outrageous Planned Parenthood is being, that private organizations have the right to make the decisions they believe are best. If we blink now, it’s over and no one will know that Komen stands for,” I implored.
Nancy’s reply stunned me. “Karen, I’ve talked to a lot of people. And even Karl says we have to backtrack. There’s just no other way.”
“Karl? Who’s Karl?”
She looked at me strangely as if I should know exactly who she was talking about. She said, “Karl Rove!”
I started laughing. Just when I thought things could not get more bizarre. What in the world did Karl Rove have to do with anything?
Indeed, Karl Rove gave bad advice. Not only was he instrumental in a decision that left Komen with zero friends rather than one, he demonstrated a total lack of understanding as to why Komen decided to break with Planned Parenthood as well as a lack of understanding of the enemy itself. And business ethics be damned. Rove showed he has a politically calculated hair trigger on controversy surrounding the abortion issue, and he aims his gun at us.
Flash forward to the Todd Akin (pictured right) controversy, when Rove gave the very same advice:
As a result this is a mistake from which, in my opinion, he cannot recover…. This race is over unless he gets out….. Look, it’s not gonna do Todd Akin any good to lose by the biggest margin that any Republican senate candidate has lost in modern history…. It’s better for the cause that he believes in and the values that he’s espoused if he gets out….
Granted, the scenarios were different, but in both cases Rove showed the same impulse, which was to turn against pro-lifers and toward the path of least political resistance, which in both cases played into the hands of abortion proponents.
How much animus does Rove feel toward Akin? He has since apologized but said, quoting CNN on August 31:
“We should sink Todd Akin. If he’s found mysteriously murdered, don’t look for my whereabouts,” Rove said Thursday at a private fundraiser, according to a Businessweek reporter who was not supposed to be there.
Finally, to Caroline Kennedy. From NewsMax.com, September 7:
Republican political strategist Karl Rove Thursday accused Caroline Kennedy of mounting a direct attack on the Catholic Church over abortion in her speech to the Democratic National Convention, in which she declared: “As a Catholic woman, I take reproductive rights seriously, and today they are under attack.”…
“No one is seriously talking about ending abortion,” Rove declared. “What [Republicans] are talking about is the administration’s effort to expand the realm of choice by – for example, requiring churches to provide contraceptive coverage to their employees – regardless of the fact that it violates the deeply most-held tenets of that faith.”
Excuse me, really? Rove hangs with the movers and shakers of the Republican Party. Is that what they think? Are pro-lifers being duped? Why in the world are pro-lifers supporting the Romney/Ryan ticket if not to work toward ending abortion? As recently as yesterday Romney said he wanted Roe overturned.
As reader Tyler wrote in an email:
It seems Mr. Rove has set the GOP agenda on life issues by himself. His position doesn’t even reflect the GOP’s platform position. The only two reasons I can think of why he is said this is either 1) he is pro-life but feels it is political expedient for the GOP to deny the pro-life position; or 2) he is not pro-life and this is his own position.
However, I can’t see how either of these scenarios helps the pro-life cause politically, morally, or culturally. If Rove is pro-life, it makes pro-lifers look sneaky and underhanded, and I don’t know how that is going to win people over to the pro-life position. It sure takes away the possibility of having a pro-life political mandate and undermines the GOP’s platform position.
I like Rove as a pundit but think he is only pro-life as long as it is convenient.
[Top photo via CNN]
by LauraLoo
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.