Karl Rove was on Fox News today slamming Democrats for “fanning the flames” and drawing attention to recent violent outbreaks against House leaders, saying that “it might inspire copycats.”
Rove was particularly critical of Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), who, he said, “owes the American people an apology” for going on cable TV and making “claims about these threats that he had no right to do.” Rove went on to call Van Hollen’s remarks “reprehensible” and said they show his “lack of character.”
Rove, like Republican Whip Eric Cantor earlier today, said he has been the victim of similar threats in the past:
I have been on the receiving end of these kind of things for years. In fact, last year when Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee were excoriating me for not coming forward and responding to a Congressional subpoena, I was on the receiving end of…a couple of death threats.
How would it have sounded, if after John Conyers, the Democratic chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and Debra Wasserman, a member of that committee and a member of the Democratic leadership, who were among the people excoriating me, how would it have sounded if I had come out and blamed them for the guy who calls up my staff and threatens violence against me?
When asked how this episode will play out, Rove said that there is nothing unique in this recent outbreak of attacks:
We are a country of 300 million people and of those 300 million are going to be some bigoted, sleazy, nasty, vicious people, and people in public life hear from them. But we encourage them by giving it this kind of attention.
