Karl Rove Quotes

'Empathy' is the latest code word for liberal activism, for treating the Constitution as malleable clay to be kneaded and molded in whatever form justices want. It represents an expansive view of the judiciary in which courts create policy that couldn't pass the legislative branch or, if it did, would generate voter backlash.

The difficulty for Mr. Obama will be when the public sees where his decisions lead - higher inflation, higher interest rates, higher taxes, sluggish growth, and a jobless recovery.

As people do better, they start voting like Republicans - unless they have too much education and vote Democratic, which proves there can be too much of a good thing.

Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 in the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers.

We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality - judiciously, as you will - we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.

I think it's dawning on some Democrats that obstructing the Patriot Act, like they've been obstructing everything else, is bad for them politically.

At the core, we are dealing with two parties that have fundamentally different views of the world.

If you look underneath the surface of the Tea Party movement, on the other hand, you will find that it is not sophisticated. It's not like these people have read the economist Friedrich August von Hayek.

You may be right that people say: You know what, we had Obama. He was inexperienced. The guy had great rhetoric, sounded good, looked good, but has turned out to be an utter disaster. I want someone where I have confidence and credibility that they're up to the job and that I can trust what they tell me.

All politicians operate within an Orwellian nimbus where words don't mean what they normally mean, but Rovism posits that there is no objective, verifiable reality at all. Reality is what you say it is.

You may end up with a different math, but you're entitled to your math. I'm entitled to the math.

Mr. Obama has an ingenious approach to job losses: He describes them as job gains.

If there's a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is.

If you really want to diminish a candidate, depict him as the foil of his handler. This is as old in American politics as politics itself.

What Mr. Obama wants in a nominee isn't really 'empathy' and 'understanding.' He wants a liberal, activist Supreme Court justice.

Mr. Obama plans to boost federal spending 25 percent while nearly tripling the national debt over 10 years. Americans know that this kind of spending will have economic consequences, including new taxes being imposed by the new progressives.

For a person who promised hope and civility in politics, Mr. Obama has shown a borderline obsessiveness in blaming Mr. Bush.

If we do with Latinos what we did with African-Americans, Republicans and conservatives will be doomed.

In his first 100 days, Mr. Obama has put the fate of his presidency in the hands of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. He may come to regret that decision.

Somebody gets to be smart and somebody gets to be dumb. If we win, it'll be because of the president. And if we lose, it'll be because of me.

Cindy Sheehan is a clown. There is no real antiwar movement. No serious politician, with anything to do with anything, would show his face at an antiwar rally.

Many Democrats have a pre-9/11 worldview.

In chaos, there is opportunity.

One of the great things about America is that we have the freedom to worship or not worship as we please. It doesn't matter whether you're a Christian, Jew, Muslim. It doesn't matter whether you're an evangelical or a Catholic or a moderate Jew. You're entitled to worship - or an agnostic or atheist.

I have become an adjective. There is something called a Rovian-style of campaigning and it's meant as an insult. One columnist said it consists mainly of throwing mud until it sticks. One prominent blogger described the elements of a textbook Rovian race as fear-based, smear-based and anything goes.

Mr. Obama denounced the $2.3 trillion added to the national debt on Mr. Bush's watch as 'deficits as far as the eye can see.' But Mr. Obama's budget adds $9.3 trillion to the debt over the next 10 years. What happened to Obama the deficit hawk?

My name is Patrick Fitzgerald ... I like to tear the tops off small animals.

I wish I had the billions of dollars that George Soros has that he has used to fund Democratic causes in the past.

The effective strategies in politics are ones that are so clear and obvious that people can grasp it.

If you are wealthy and can hire enough accountants and attorneys, you can find ways around the code. It's fundamentally not fair. It wastes a lot of time and energy and effort to comply with it. It doesn't encourage savings and investment. And we need to simply it and make it more fair.

Hurricane Sandy interrupted Mr. Romney’s momentum and allowed Mr. Obama to look presidential and bipartisan.

If you decide to become a political actor, then the things that you say and you do become subject of public scrutiny and comment.

Well, marriage is a very important part of our culture and our society. If we want to have a hopeful and decent society, we ought to aim for the ideal.

My Greek mythology is not strong enough.

[T]he economy remains the top issue for the electorate.

I don't know about you, but moderation and restraint is not what I felt when I watched the twin towers crumble to the ground, a side of the Pentagon destroyed, and almost 3,000 of our fellow citizens perish in flames and rubble.

I would have strong opinions and be prepared to argue my case, but if you talk to my colleagues, I think you'd find they consider me the jokester, the informal mayor of the West Wing.

Would the Iraq War have occurred without WMD? I doubt it.

Karl Rove told me about Valerie Plame's identity on July 11, 2003. I called him because Ambassador Wilson was in the news that week. I didn't know Ambassador Wilson even had a wife until I talked to Karl Rove, and he said that she worked at the Agency and worked on WMD.

Our [Republicans'] object is to avoid having stupid candidates who can't win general elections, who are undisciplined, can't raise money, aren't putting together the support necessary to win a general election campaign, because this money is too difficult to raise to be spending it on behalf of candidates who have little chance of winning in a general election.

There is a difference between Senator Obama and Senator McCain. Senator Obama believes that the government ought to be able to take as much as it thinks it needs from anybody.

Life is rough for a lot of people. Some people live in greater material circumstances than others, but life is rough for everybody.

I`m not planning to endorse anybody. I have a long friendship with the family and a long friendship with Jeb [Bush], but I`m, like a lot of people, sitting on the sidelines watching and waiting.

Once again the powers of light and good have triumphed over the media!

But the world is a better place with Saddam Hussein gone.

We need to be asking for the vote in the most powerful way possible, which is to have people asking for the vote who are comfortable and look like and sound like the people that we're asking for the vote from.

Well, I'm a Christian. I was a born a Presbyterian and became an Episcopalian.

5,000 years of human history should not be overthrown by the acts of a few liberal judges or by the acts of a few local elected officials.

Marriage is and should be defined as being between one man and one woman.

You're entitled in this country to worship as you please or to not worship. It's one of the great things that defines us as a nation, and it's at the heart of what it is to be in America.