Rove calls Democrats ‘wrong’

WASHINGTON – White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove offered a biting preview of the 2006 midterm elections Friday, drawing sharp distinctions with the Democrats over the campaign against terrorism, tax cuts and judicial philosophy, and describing the opposition party as backward-looking and bereft of ideas.

“At the core, we are dealing with two parties that have fundamentally different views on national security,” Rove said. “Republicans have a post-9/11 worldview and many Democrats have a pre-9/11 worldview. That doesn’t make them unpatriotic – not at all. But it does make them wrong – deeply and profoundly and consistently wrong.”

Rove spoke at the winter meeting of the Republican National Committee and, with RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman, provided a campaign blueprint for fighting the Democrats. They spoke at the beginning of an important election year in which Republicans are battling historical trends, public unrest over Iraq and a spreading corruption scandal that together threaten to reduce the GOP majorities in the House and the Senate and possibly shift control of one or both chambers to the Democrats.

At a time when Democrats have staked their hopes in large part on the issue of corruption, Rove and Mehlman showed that Republicans plan to contest the elections on themes that have helped expand their majorities under President Bush. They see national security and the vigorous prosecution of the campaign against terrorism at the heart of the GOP appeal to voters.

Rove’s RNC address was a rare public appearance at a time when he remains under investigation in the CIA leak case that resulted in the indictment and resignation of Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby. Despite the investigation, Rove is still Bush’s top political adviser.

Taking no questions from the audience or the news media, Rove used his platform to excoriate Democrats for “wild and reckless and false charges” against Bush on the issue of domestic spying and what he called an attempted smear against Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. at his Supreme Court confirmation hearings last week. “Some members of the committee came across as mean-spirited and small-minded, and it left a searing impression,” Rove said, referring to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Mehlman echoed Rove on national security and taxes and explicitly addressed the corruption issue.

Calling for the vigorous prosecution of any wrongdoing, Mehlman sought to insulate his party from the spreading scandal involving lobbyist Jack Abramoff, the indictment of former House majority leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, and the guilty plea of former representative Randy “Duke” Cunningham, R-Calif. “If Republicans are guilty of illegal or inappropriate behavior,” Mehlman said, “then they should pay the price and they should suffer the consequences.”

Democrats were quick to respond, with Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean challenging Rove’s fitness to serve. “Karl Rove only has a White House job and a security clearance because President Bush has refused to keep his promise to fire anyone involved in revealing the identity of an undercover CIA operative,” Dean said in a statement.