Rove, Wrong

Jake, I think Rove was a little miffed when you wrote: “Media reports have since stated that the FBI believes it knows who mailed the materials to Downey, and has identified the person as a member of the Bush campaign. ”
You then went on to discuss his career of political pranks which would lead one to believe the Gore allegations were true.
I can see from his perspective why he felt the way he did about that article. I assume your skin it thick enough to take such a small mention in his book.
By the way, I like reporters who are touch on BOTH sides of the team and tries to keep BOTH sides honest. It is why you da man.

Jake, this may be a “minnow”, but that’s who all “big fish” begin. Interestingly, he doesn’t explicitly deny sending the materials-a very Nixonian non-denial denial. Of course, Rove’s veracity is beyond question. And the sun may rise in the west tomorrow.

It may sound like revisionist history because Rove is writing his version of what happened, and he was there, which contradicts everything the media has been spewing the last 10 years. So of course it will sound revisionist…no one’s heard any of this before, not surprisingly.

what you did, here, Jake, is give undue attention (a back-handed plug) to rubbish. Conservatives will undoubtedly flock to the stores to support book sales, as they did for Palin’s ridiculous book. What you did here was to focus mainstream attention on it. Shame on you!

Like a lot of conservatives, I have become a big Jake Tapper fan because he is one of the few good-faith reporters in the White House . . . he wants the story, and he wants the truth, and he keeps after it. That is good reporting in a nutshell.
I do have to say, after following him regularly for a while, I was shocked to discover how partisan and muckraking his background was (including his books) . . . he comes across as a just-the-facts type of reporter now.
Which makes me wonder whether he has just matured and seasoned like most of us do in our 20′s and 30′s – or if he still thinks the same way he did back then?
I don’t see how the “two” Jake Tapper’s can be reconciled. But I like the Jake Tapper that I see now.
I think he should ignore a lot of what’s past – and focus on his very significant role as the most dangerous guy in the press room. I trust him. I’d rather not see the past become an issue.

===All the world knew and knows that Rove is a liar. This was the most dishonest, out-of-control, arrogant, “I”, first, Not the country” administration I have lived through. ===
You must have died on January 20, 2009.

shocked to discover how partisan and muckraking his background was
Posted by: Publius
that’s what ‘they’ call people who ask uncomfortable questions to people who don’t want to hear or answer them….

Rove = lier, scam artist, crook, self-centered, bigot, racist and the list will go on and on!

Jake.. there’s no such thing a bad press in H’wood (or D.C.).. even negative attention is good, it means you’re a playa.. a baller.. a capo.. s’all good bra’

for some reason the comment software cut out the portion of Jake’s story I was referring to … here it is.
“there is some evidence of dirty tricks by Rove in the past, none of it establishes anything more than the fact that if you were at the beach, Rove might not be the guy you’d ask to hold onto your wallet while you went in for a dip — especially if you happened to be running a campaign against a Rove-backed candidate.”

Axelrod learned a lot from rover.. in my H.O. at least.. they both run the W.H. like the campaign never stops..

Jake,
I have read your previous 2000 post and this one. My gut feeling is that you are quite disingenious about your reporting on Bush years and Rove. In deep-down your heart, you certainly wanted to describe Rove in a bad way by repeately quoting numerous liberal lies on Rove and Bush without any truth in these lies. If you did not believe there was any truth in or were sympathesized with those lies, why did you repeat and repeat it. Be honest, Jake! Suppose someone repeatly post in different newspapers, radios or websites that somebody so and so said Jake has a well-established liberal partisanship in his reporting throughout his journalist career. Although it may not be true, but if people repeat it hundreds’ times, it becomes a reality. It may in fact is a fact on your reporting. In this sense, Rove is not wrong by calling out on you. Instead, you may be wrong by calling Rove wrong because you did it first!

His nickname of turd blossom says it all.

Yes Jake, the media was much tougher on Hillary than Obama — including you! While you were one of the few to report anything at all adverse about him, I remember you saying Hillary was using the “Tonya Harding option” –that was disrespectful and sexist. You would never have said that about a male candidate. Further, she had every right to fight for the nomination and didn’t need these kinds of slurs with the rest of the media acting like his PR firm. We surely would have been better off with her as President than who we have now. N’est-ce pas?

Tapper…you disingenuous idiot. What you did was act as the hatchet man for the Gore campaign..and now crying like a little girl now that you have been exposed by Rove.
You know how it works. This is why Limbaugh refers to clowns as the “drive by media”.
You wrote “I noted more than once that she made her charges “without a shred of evidence”
…so why even bother to write about it at all? …unless you knew that the story would grow legs and be propagted ad nauseum by the rest of the corrupt hacks in the media. You throw out the unsubstantiated charge..knowing full well that your cohorts will repeat it, repeat it and repeat it…until they convince themselves and the idiot consumers of your nonsense take it as truth.
You really are despicable

Ok, Jake, I usually respect your columns, but this one stinks.
I read Rove’s account in his book, and I read your article in Salon. You did everything you could in that article to call Rove a thief and a liar, just inserting caveats here and there to CYA.
Rove was the one smeared by you, not the other way around. You can parse words and hide behind semantics, but your intent was obvious, and you got called on it.

I don’t get it. Jake Tapper’s piece here seems to simply confirm Karl Rove’s story.
Tapper was perhaps IMPLYING, rather than ALLEGING, that Rove had sent the debate materials to entrap the Gore camp. But that’s a pretty minor point in the context of the article, which smears Rove several times using innuendo instead of facts.

Sorry, Jake, you’re the bad guy here, not Karl Rove.
Before Mr. Rove started working for FOXNews, I wondered what type of person he was – the lame stream media had portrayed him to be such a wicked villain! Was I ever surprised to find out what a nice, totally respectful, ethical person he is! What was done to him and Scooter Libby by Fitzgerald and the media is a travesty of the highest order.

After reading the article you wrote for Salon, I think Mr. Roves charge has some merit.You are better then most WH reporters but thats not saying much.

Like you say Jake, this is the stuff of minnows in the context of the book. But remember the first rule of holes and put down the shovel.

Get a life Jake

I have respect for you, Mr. Tapper. It’s time to stop digging the hole further. Let it go. Rove isn’t the one who looks bad here.

Wow, not one single comment in support of Jake Tapper. The way the media smeared Rove, there will come a time when the shoe is on the other foot. Jake is a minor rat, but they are all about to scurry when the public begins to view them as socialist enablers. Good luck with that one Jaker.

Man up, Jake. Or do you need Rahm Emmanuel yelling at you in the shower room and pointing his finger in your face telling you to “man up” while the water washes away your tears? Rove just did what you attempted to do, but he convincingly made his case. Besides, you started this mess in the first place.

Tapper just proved Rove’s point.

You put together a whole story that implicates Rove “without a shred of evidence,” and you’re claiming his book is wrong?
C’mon, now.

…When I first heard about this, my immediate reaction was to turn to my husband and say, “This thing has Karl Rove’s fingerprints all over it.”
You write this and claim that it wasn’t you.
The comments above are an order of magnitude too gracious.

gosh, jake, when you read the salon piece and how rove characterizies it, rove seems to be accurate. more accurate than all those pieces i read about how he was the one who leaked VP’s name, thats for sure. you tarnished your kharma on this one dude.

Jake, you were pretty at pretending to be even handed but those days are gone.

Still waiting on a piece by Jake Tapper about how devious and underhanded Obama’s political advisers are. We know that day will never arrive.

I went back to the Salon piece and Mr. Rove was right. You spent 24 paragraphs going into any accusations about him..and then finished with 5 paragraphs giving the rebuttal. It is evident that you wanted to give your slant that Karl Rove had done this, but without evidence, as a reporter you couldnt just announce it. So you threw in a couple of lines to “appear” neutral.

de Tapp, les credible de facto et all.
Makes about as much sense as your defense, sluggo!

Jake,
Let me be a little more specific than the commenters criticizing you above (with whom I agree and with whom I don’t want to be redundant).
The point, and Rove directs you to it by singling out the Malcom quote, is that your piece treats it as established fact that Rove is a dirty player (whatever that means), so that the only question on which the facts weren’t yet decisive was whether the most recent episode was yet another of his dirty tricks.
That’s like me being “even-handed” and “neutral” by writing about how the facts are not yet clear regarding whether long-time wife-beater Tapper beat his wife again last night.

Jake is the epitome of the main stream media. Making news is more important then reporting it. Why report facts when lies will suit your purpose.

Girly Boy!!!

…Jake, I’m a staunch conservative, but you are one of the few MSM journalist who has honestly held this administration accountable and so I’ll say, good for you. Your rebuttal is straightforward, free of invective and personalization and fact based. And it acknowledges that this is just a small correction, a ‘just for the record’ kind. I’m sure Karl Rove has a rebuttal for you, but I’ve come a long way in respecting you as a professional journalist. The way you practice journalism is the way should be practiced. It’s how it should be taught. Sadly, it isn’t and that’s why we on the right find it such a despicable career.
You, I’m happy to say, are one of the few voices that are trying to reclaim its former prestige.

I also read your link and must agree with the majority of those who think Rove was unfairly painted with a brush deeming him a dirty player. The wife beating analogy referred to earlier is an appropriate fit. I think you had an opportunity to get published at Salon to further your career and created this web of “potential” underhandedness to fit the narrative that Salon or you wished to spin. When two thirds of the story is used to slime Rove and paragraph after paragraph insinuates he is a double dealer with only the occasional rebuttal that there is no evidence to support the allegations, one can only come to agree with Roves perspective. Rove one, Tapper zero.

You can’t stop the facts, Jake. You lost me long ago when you quit fairly reporting and started trying to influence your readers’ perceptions. You sound like the neighborhood gossip who publicly passes around defamatory stories about an acquaintance, all the while whispering ‘it might be just hearsay, but. . . .’
I’d have more respect for you if you’d man up and own your biases, rather than trying to convince your readers (former readers ?) that you’re innocent of obscurely denigrating Rove at a time when the Administration sorely needed some support from the media.
The MSM needs to take the blame for their part in the condition of our nation. Their (your) hands are plenty dirty.

Hey, Jake, if your want redemption, why not do a similar piece for Salon.com, but this time make it about Waxman telling Stupak ‘We want to fund abortions’, then you can follow up with the Stupak assertion that Dems have stated they need abortion funded because without it, we’d have too many people on our Welfare/free health care system. You could call it ‘Dems asking for tax-payer funded death panels for our youngest, most vulnerable citizens’. I doubt you’ll write THAT one in quite the same smear-fashion font as Rove’s. lol

Why does Obama have to be drawn into this fracus between Rove and Tapper. Obviously, he was not even a factor in this so why even bring him in? Hate is a nasty thing..it poisons one soul and there is so much hate around it makes me sad. If you agree with Tapper, so be it. If you agree with Rove so be it but to bring in someone who isn’t even involved shows just how impartial you really are…all of you.

“ROVE WRONG”…proably no truer words have ever been spoken. And on this subject (him), that is all that needs to be said.

Rove is not mistaken in how he characterized you. You are either lying, or just too dim to see what you did.
By repeating a “non story” you in fact gave credence to the “Rove did it” BS.
Kinda like writing about say an allegation that OBamma abuses his kids, continually saying that with the disclaimer that there is no hard evidence to support the allegations etc etc . You in fact would be supporting the allegations merely by reporting them that way.

Jake – I took the time to read the Salon article thinking you probably had a good argument. Boy was I wrong. Although you are correct that you didn’t “technically” say Rove did this, you go on, and on, and on, and on about his alleged past dirty deeds.
I then re-read Karl Rove’s comment about this incident. I fully understand and agree with his characterization, even if you want to take cover by arguing Rove is “technically” incorrect.

Jake, Man up.
I tend to think you were supporting GORE.
You should have let it go.
This column makes you look petty and shows you for what you are (not a fair minded reporter).
I used to respect you, however …it seems you have just been hiding your bias better than the rest.
Too bad.

JT,
Your article seemed ( at least to me) to be a lot of YOUR opinion, and less about fact when written in Salon.
ARE you are solid middle of the road reporter , or are you going to fall into the rut of all the rest?
Its really your call?

Tap you’re wrong on this one.
Sure hope you haven’t been playing dress up and pretend…………………
I thought you were trying to report with some integrity and to attempt to hold the administration accountable for their actions.
It was nice to think ABC had a decent guy on the beat.

I cannot believe that you, Mr Tapper took the time to write this column. WHY? Some things are just better, left unsaid.
Can it be that you aren’t quite neutral in your reporting as we have all hoped you were?
The blush may be off the rose.

Mr Tapper
You should have LET IT BE.
You look like you are trying to defend yourself, yet you know you were over the line…if only a little bit.
The original piece was biased. I tend to agree with most of the posters on the site today.
Most of the time you are fair. Keep it up.
DK

Rove use slimy tactics? Never!

I’ve got to preface my comment by saying that among the left-leaning MSM, Tapper is about the closest you’ll find to objective, but I’ve got to side with Rove on this one.
It is fair for Tapper to point out that Rove may have technically mischaracterized him by saying his Salon story was “alleging” Rove had tried to set up the Gore campaign. As Tapper points out, he did point out at several points there was no hard evidence.
But it is also apparent that Tapper used the story as a “peg” to irresponsibly report that unsupported allegation and launch into further unsubstantiated gossip about Rove.
Really, it gets into the grey area of what is fair to report.
On a scale of 1 (fair) to 10 (unfair), I’d rank Tapper’s Salon piece as a 6.

Good on you, Stephen, Tilly, InvisiblePaw!, and Joe Cutrell…actually a lot of you feel the same as I do.

“The story is not as Rove depicts it.
“I didn’t allege that Rove sent the materials, I gave voice to officials from both campaigns accusing the other of having played a role, noting that no one had any concrete evidence to back up their charges.”
___________________________________
Tapper is correct.

Anyone that would believe anything Karl Rove says is either a “fool” or a “robotized ideologue”.

To be fair, choosing between who is worse at good, honest reporting is difficult in this case.
Rove use sleazy tactics? Impossible!

Let me give you a crash synopsis of what the Rove book is all about (and this is according to Rove himself): The Bush Mob were wildly successful – in fact they were the most competent administration in American history – and President Obama is undoing all the good work they did with his filthy Socialist ways. Basically our boy Karl is hoping that the American people will once again exhibit symptoms of the mass amnesia for which they are justly famous. After eight six long years of the executive and legislative branches of our government being controlled by the extreme fringe of American politics, the very idea that the electorate is now seriously considering going back in that loony direction must fill Rove with joy.
The revisionist history that is now being peddled by these clowns is astounding in its audacity. They are now trying to sell the fiction that it was the inattention of the Clinton administration that led directly to the hideous attacks of September 11, 2001. What is being conveniently ignored by the revisionists (They “conveniently ignore” a lot of stuff. Did you ever notice that?) is the fact that when Clinton’s National Security Adviser Sandy Berger had his first face-to-face interview with Condoleeza Rice during the transition in the winter of 2000, he bluntly told her that al Quida had been that his number one focus ant that it would be her’s, too. After the meeting Berger came away with the distinct impression that Dr. Rice didn’t even know what the hell al Qaeda was. George W. Bush, you might remember, thought that the Taliban was a rock ‘n’ roll group. Brilliant bunch, this lot.

Jake, you were wrong on this one.
Watched Rove on CSPAN last night. GREAT INTERVIEW.
He took live calls, and answered without hesitation even when he didn’t agree with the caller or when they affronted him.
He mentioned you. Get the transcript.
JMC