Quotes of the day: The man who wrote the book on civil, rational political discourse (he's agin it) puts "nutty" bloggers in our place: "angry kooks"

"The Web has given angry and vitriolic people more of a voice in public discourse."

"People in the past who have been on the nutty fringe of political life, who were more or less voiceless, have now been given an inexpensive and easily accessible soapbox, a blog."

--standup comic Karl Rove, at yesterday's Citizen 2.0 gathering in Washington, D.C.

Today's reading has been pretty heavy going, no? We all need some comic relief, right? Amanda at ThinkProgress catches us up on the antics of the man known to the politically wise as "Mr. Civility":

Rove Decries ‘Nutty’ ‘Vitriolic’ Bloggers Who Spew ‘Bad Words’

Yesterday, ThinkProgress attended a Yahoo-sponsored Citizen 2.0 event in Washington, DC, at which Karl Rove discussed the intersection of politics and the Internet. Rove lamented the loss of civility in politics on the web, but then proceeded to use his speech as a partisan bashing of the netroots. According to Rove, bloggers are “nutty,” “vitriolic,” and “kooks.” The Washington Times reported on his remarks:

“The Web has given angry and vitriolic people more of a voice in public discourse,” said Mr. Rove, who served as one of President Bush’s top strategists until he resigned this past summer, and is a noted technology nut.

“People in the past who have been on the nutty fringe of political life, who were more or less voiceless, have now been given an inexpensive and easily accessible soapbox, a blog,” Mr. Rove said during a speech about politics and the Web at the Willard InterContinental, a hotel just blocks from his former place of employment.

“I’m a fan of many blogs. I visit them frequently and I learn a lot from them,” Mr. Rove said. “But there also blogs written by angry kooks.”

He also claimed that liberals use more “bad words,” comparing sites like DailyKos and Democratic Underground to Townhall and FreeRepublic. The “netroots often argue from anger rather than reason, and too often, their object is personal release, not political persuasion,” said Rove.

The Internets is not the reason hyperpartisan politics have been elevated; people like Karl Rove are. A look at some of Rove’s contributions to anger and vitriol in public discourse:

--When Bush ran against Democratic Texas governor Ann Richards in 1994, Rove was connected to a rumor that Richards was a lesbian.

--A former Rove staffer said that during the 1996 Alabama Supreme Court race, the campaign of Harold See--run by Rove--“initiated a whisper campaign” that See’s opponent “was a pedophile.”

--“Political operatives” have charged that Rove orchestrated a “widely disseminated rumor that John McCain, tortured as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, had betrayed his country under interrogation and been rendered mentally unfit for office.”

During the Q & A session, Rove admitted that despite the coarseness of the political debate, he hopes the netroots “keep at it” because it helps Republicans. If only the blogosphere were as civil as Karl Rove.

[Note: For the links throughout Amanda's post, check out the ThinkProgress version.]

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