Karl Rove and Howard Dean, UNLV April 9, 2010
UNLV’s Majorie Barrick Lecture Series has brought in a number of important guests in the past, but I do believe that these two were among the most prominent to date. The audience was certainly highly divided with a large and vocal number of extreme conservatives (moderator Jon Ralston made a Tea Partier joke, which they liked) but a good representation of the more left-leaning, as well.
While Ralston leans somewhat left himself, he went out of his way to placate Rove and often almost ignored Dean and really didn’t help to bring out any responses from him. Rove made a couple of comments trying to belittle Ralston for his views, though Ralston never gave an opinion about anything and certainly gave Dean a more difficult time than he did to Rove.
That said, Rove did come off and a much more accomplished public speaker, who was highly passionate and not afraid to be divisive (his first words after Dean’s opening comments were to the effect of “now this is the end of civility for the night”). As usual, Rove spun like mad, told plenty of lies and bullshit and pandered to the base (even going for the ancient “Gore invented the internet” joke – though he was obviously joking and not trying to say that Gore claimed this, unlike other republicans have done). At one point he went off on a rambling tangent about how upset he was that the youth of today were getting their news from the internet and not newspapers (presumably like the Wall Street Journal that he is writing for), as if that was a bad thing.
Dean, on the other hand, has never been a great speaker but still seemed very much off of his game here. He missed many, many chances to make good points and rebut Rove and even relied on non-sequitor pot-shots, which were really below him. Of course, he was at a disadvantage of having to defend Obama on many things that he doesn’t completely agree on, such as the health care bill, some weaknesses of the Stimulus plan (the fact that it should have gone farther than it did) and some of his foreign policy ideas. Dean wasn’t necessarily asked about his views on these items, but was asked to defend the Democrats in general or Obama in particular. Of course, his points were logical and overall well-made, but he did not have the passion that Rove had and did not debunk all of Roves lies and spins, which was unfortunate.
So, this was not the spirited debate that many had hoped and despite one person interrupted Rove from the audience (who was quickly silenced) and some odd-balls outside, there was little drama. Dean certainly did not change any conservatives’ minds this evening, or even enliven the liberal base, which is a shame.
While Ralston leans somewhat left himself, he went out of his way to placate Rove and often almost ignored Dean and really didn’t help to bring out any responses from him. Rove made a couple of comments trying to belittle Ralston for his views, though Ralston never gave an opinion about anything and certainly gave Dean a more difficult time than he did to Rove.
That said, Rove did come off and a much more accomplished public speaker, who was highly passionate and not afraid to be divisive (his first words after Dean’s opening comments were to the effect of “now this is the end of civility for the night”). As usual, Rove spun like mad, told plenty of lies and bullshit and pandered to the base (even going for the ancient “Gore invented the internet” joke – though he was obviously joking and not trying to say that Gore claimed this, unlike other republicans have done). At one point he went off on a rambling tangent about how upset he was that the youth of today were getting their news from the internet and not newspapers (presumably like the Wall Street Journal that he is writing for), as if that was a bad thing.
Dean, on the other hand, has never been a great speaker but still seemed very much off of his game here. He missed many, many chances to make good points and rebut Rove and even relied on non-sequitor pot-shots, which were really below him. Of course, he was at a disadvantage of having to defend Obama on many things that he doesn’t completely agree on, such as the health care bill, some weaknesses of the Stimulus plan (the fact that it should have gone farther than it did) and some of his foreign policy ideas. Dean wasn’t necessarily asked about his views on these items, but was asked to defend the Democrats in general or Obama in particular. Of course, his points were logical and overall well-made, but he did not have the passion that Rove had and did not debunk all of Roves lies and spins, which was unfortunate.
So, this was not the spirited debate that many had hoped and despite one person interrupted Rove from the audience (who was quickly silenced) and some odd-balls outside, there was little drama. Dean certainly did not change any conservatives’ minds this evening, or even enliven the liberal base, which is a shame.
posted by rich at 11:24 AM
<< Home