The Ironic Karl Rove

Karl Rove, in one ironic sound bite, displayed so much of what is bad about politics and the political elite. From an ABC News blogger:

ABC News' Christianne Klein reports that at a breakfast with Republican insiders at the Capitol Hill Club this morning, former White House senior aide Karl Rove referred to Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, as "coolly arrogant."

"Even if you never met him, you know this guy," Rove said, per Christianne Klein. "He's the guy at the country club with the beautiful date, holding a martini and a cigarette that stands against the wall and makes snide comments about everyone who passes by."

Let's disect this, shall we.

Karl Rove must position himself as an elitist to make such a comment about a political rival. He "knows this guy" from the country club because is a country club regular. He was the mastermind behind turning a retarded golf buddy into the regular Joe president that every flag carrying American can relate to, which, for a while gave him the elevated status as a political guru.

Also, doesn't his characterization of Obama as arrogant constitute making "snide comments"? If this statement was an attempt to make someone who sits in the corner criticizing people look like an arrogant elitist, doesn't that make Rove himself an arrogant elitist.

As a denegration of another person's character, Rove sure succeeded in denegrating himself in the process. Without giving examples of Obama's actual behavior, Rove has also demonstrated perfectly what it means to project.

From wikipedia.org:

Common definitions (of projection)

* "Projection is the opposite defense mechanism to identification. We project our own unpleasant feelings onto someone else and blame them for having thoughts that we really have."
* "A defense mechanism in which the individual attributes to other people impulses and traits that he himself has but cannot accept. It is especially likely to occur when the person lacks insight into his own impulses and traits."
* "Attributing one's own undesirable traits to other people or agencies."
* "The individual perceives in others the motive he denies having himself. Thus the cheat is sure that everyone else is dishonest."
* "People attribute their own undesirable traits onto others."
* "An individual who possesses malicious characteristics, but who is unwilling to perceive himself as an antagonist, convinces himself that his opponent feels and would act the same way."

The quote makes more sense when you imagine Karl Rove talking about himself in an autobiography:

"Even if you never met [me], you know [me]. [I'm] the guy at the country club [without] the beautiful date, holding a martini and a cigarette that stands against the wall and makes snide comments about everyone who passes by."

Mojoey's Atheist Blogroll

If you are always looking for more atheism blogs to read, an excellent source (beisdes my own blogroll) comes from Mojoey on Deep Thoughts. If you would like to join it yourself, jump over to there to read the rules and send him an email to request to be on it.

While you're at it, let me know about your blog and I'll link to you if I think you're worthy.

Let the meme begin

I haven't posted in a while, but I figured a good way to come back is to try and help spblat spread the word fogpie around the internet.

Spblat invented the word and I made up a definition using the context from the sentence he had used it in. I'm interested to see where this goes and I hope it starts getting used in everyday internet debates. I envision it being used in a situation where someone is trying to stifle debate by being intentionally verbose or confusing. For further explaination, see our discussion of what to do with the domain.