It was made by a government official (Rowe, whom we taxpayers pay) on government time, and repeated by many other taxpayer-paid administrative officials on their government time.
Consider the facts:
CBS News FACE THE NATION
Sunday, June 18, 2006
GUEST: TONY SNOW White House Press Secretary
SCHIEFFER: Let me--let me just ask you about the quote that Karl Rove put out, because he clearly is trying to make this a part of the coming campaign. He was up in New Hampshire, and he said, Democrats "are ready to give the green light to go to war, but when it gets tough, when it gets difficult, they fall back on that party's old pattern of cutting and running. They may be with you at the first shots, but they are not going to be with you for the last, tough battle." He mentioned, especially, John Murtha and also John Kerry. What pattern is he talking about? When have Democrats been cutting and running?
Mr. SNOW: Well, I'm not going to--I'm not going to get into the middle of Karl's political fight. But let's talk about...
SCHIEFFER: But that's--you're on the same team.
Mr. SNOW: ...a couple of things. We are on the same team, but, but let's talk about some of the things that are going on on the Hill because there have been a couple of interesting votes. The Senate, for instance, voted this week on a proposal that Senator Kerry put forth to withdraw troops by the end of the year. It got six votes. I think one of the interesting things is trying to make sure that there's clarity about what the--what people want in terms of moving forward in Iraq. What exactly do they want? The president's position is pretty clear, and I'm going to be here--I'll tell you about the president's position, but I'm not going to get into sort of the political...(unintelligible).
SCHIEFFER: But are you comfortable with characterizing the Democrats as people who want to cut and run?
Mr. SNOW: I think what Ker--Ker--what I'm comfortable doing is telling you what the president's position is.
SCHIEFFER: All right.
Mr. SNOW: I'll let Karl carry the political football.
To Mr. Schieffer's credit, he asked the questions - particularly whether it was fair. But I wouldn't have let it be "All right" because it's not.
The two Luckovich cartoons say it better than I: It's not all right and it's time that we say we're not going to take it anymore. Their fantasies are getting us into serious international trouble which we may never recover from. Thus my request for a courageous reporter (or perhaps editor) to regularly show that Rowe is misusing his government position to produce and manage slanderous campaign rhetoric that misdirects the media and public from the real issues... unflattering as they may be. It's time for reality versus fantasy!
Any takers out there?
