Vintage Rove

I’m sure the few occasional visitors to Morialekafa are mostly unaware of my previous attempt to add a new verb to our language. It seemed to me that if a noun like quisling (the name of a Norwegian traitor in WW II) could be added to our language, there was no reason an additional verb could not be. Obviously I have not been successful at this. The word and definition I suggested to be added (6 -7-12) are as follows:

“roviate v. to smear, slime, malign, denigrate, and attempt to destroy an opponent through the use of innuendo, rumor, slander, outright lies and any other despicable means available. Roviation works more effectively when done in collusion with major media.”

Obviously Karl Rove was the stimulus for this attempt as he was well known for using such means against opponents, such as the rumor that John McCain might have fathered a black baby, a woman running for office might be a lesbian, another candidate may be a pedophile, and etc. This is somewhat reminiscent of a ploy once described by Lyndon Johnson who apparently said, “I could accuse him of having sex with a goat. It wouldn’t be true, of course, but it doesn’t matter as he’d have to work like hell to deny it” (this is not an exact quote but contains the gist of it. I confess I don’t even know if this was true). It should be obvious why I am now bringing this up again, at least if you have been following the news.

Rove is at it again, having suggested that Hillary Clinton may have suffered some kind of brain damage, claiming she had been in the hospital for 30 days and was wearing glasses that were meant for such conditions. Neither of these claims are true, of course, as she was hospitalized for only four days and they were not that kind of glasses. But not to matter, this is vintage Rove, and even though it will be perhaps a year before she even declares to run in 2016, it’s never too soon for the ”roviation” to begin. It is not hard to imagine how badly the 2016 campaign will become degraded thanks to Rove and his buddies (if, indeed, he really has any buddies).

Rove has attempted to backtrack a bit, claiming he didn’t mean it, but meant only to bring up the legitimate issue of her age and health. But whatever he might be, Rove is not stupid. The dirty bastard knows exactly what he has done. And now that he has planted the seed, no matter what Hillary does or says, or no matter what the doctors may say and do, there will be some on the brain damaged right that will always believe and say Hillary has brain damage. Roviation is a truly insidious technique that will be front and center from now on, presumably to discourage Hillary from actually running at all, and failing that, to defeat her if she does. Free speech, unfortunately, is easily abused.

 One of the problems with defending free speech is you often have to defend people that you find to be outrageous and unpleasant and disgusting.

Salman Rushdie