"President Bush and Republican Members of Congress should immediately repudiate Karl Rove's shameful remarks. It is unconscionable for Rove, or anyone else, to try to politicize the horrible events of 9/11. He should apologize immediately.

Americans of all political stripes stood united in defense of our great nation and in support of our brave troops in the field. Unfortunately, some decided it was more important to score cheap political points than to maintain that unity.

It is clear, from the comments of leading Republicans including Senators John McCain, Chuck Hagel, John Warner and Ted Stevens, that the war in Iraq is not succeeding. But instead of addressing the failure to adequately supply our troops or adequately plan to defeat the insurgency, one of President Bush's senior advisors is making a scurrilous attack against loyal and proud Americans."

Peter Daou of the Daou Report says:

I'm devoting much of today's report to Karl Rove's vile comments denigrating half of the American public. My office overlooks Ground Zero, and I'm looking at the gaping footprint as I write this. My wife and I were in New York that day, on our way to the WTC for a morning meeting. A chance phone call dragged on a few minutes too long and most likely saved our lives. I lost friends in the towers, and when I walk past the site, as I do almost every evening, the pain is as real as it was on September 11th, 2001.

I spent my youth in Beirut during the height of Lebanon's civil war, and I fought the Syrian presence in Lebanon long before the "Cedar Revolution." I watched young boys give their lives and mothers cradle their dying children in blood-soaked arms. I've seen more bloodshed, war, and violence, and shot more guns than most of the 101st Fighting Keyboardists combined. I wouldn't presume to question the strength or dignity of a stranger, and I pity those who blithely push the right=strong, left=weak rhetoric. It says far more about their inadequacies than it does about the target of their scorn. Today, Karl Rove took that rhetoric to a new, filthy low.