After all the talk of the Romney campaign being caught by surprise at their loss, I just had to find this:

The aide said that guys like me were “in what we call the reality-based community,” which he defined as people who “believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.” … “That’s not the way the world really works anymore,” he continued. “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.”

It turns out this is attributed to Karl Rove. Funny how being an actor has turned against him, as was so aptly shown on election night.

Bottom line: The world really does work the way he said it didn’t. That the Romney campaign enveloped themselves in the Karl Rove created bubble of faith-based beliefs completely explains their surprise when the truth of their loss became all too apparent.

You do not get to deny reality. God gave us our senses to use, not to ignore. All Magical thinking will do is put us in an Emperor’s new clothes. Granted, the horny, instinctual male in me would love to see certain women in an Emperor’s new clothes, but as a member of the Reality Based community I know it is never going to happen.

Damn, that makes me sad.

Anyone remember this? Karl Rove leaked Valarie Plame’s role as a CIA operative.

Now, again via C&L, it appears Karl Rove continues to mess with CIA personal for political gain. Not that it worked; still.

I’m smelling a Rove rat. Are you? Why the silence from Cantor? Clearly Reichert tipped Cantor off in the hopes of using this information in some way. The Petraeus/Rove relationship is real and long-standing. Is it possible that Paula was passing Rove information to use against President Obama in his re-election bid?

So, there is a timeline of events, more or less unrelated.

• June 11, 2012 – Broadwell pictured with Rove, who tweets about it in June.
• June-August, 2012 – FBI receives complaint about “harassing emails” sent by Broadwell to Jill Kelley
• October 26, 2012 – Fox News “Exclusive” claiming CIA requested and was refused reinforcements.
• October 26, 2012 – Broadwell pimps the Fox News version of events at a University of Denver symposium
• October 28, 2012 – Rove hammers and expands on it in an interview on Fox News
• Approximately October 28-31, 2012 – FBI confronts Petraeus and interviews him about emails, determines no breaches of national security have taken place.
• October 31, 2012 – Cantor Chief of Staff contacted by Rep. Dave Reichert about FBI ‘whistleblower’. Cantor says he contacted the FBI immediately.
• November 6, 2012 – Barack Obama wins re-election
• November 6, 2012 – James Clapper (Director of National Intelligence) informed of FBI investigation
• November 8, 2012 – Petraeus submits resignation
• November 9, 2012 – Resignation accepted

So, what is the deal here? There is something more to this story. Was it suppose to hurt President Obama? Obviously it did not. Instead, it looks to have backfired? Will Karl Rove finally be frog marched?

It will forever haunt him to the end of his days.

via Kevin Drum.

(WSJ) Agents spent weeks piecing together who may have sent them. They used metadata footprints left by the emails to determine what locations they were sent from. They matched the places, including hotels, where Ms. Broadwell was during the times the emails were sent. FBI agents and federal prosecutors used the information as probable cause to seek a warrant to monitor Ms. Broadwell’s email accounts.

….They learned that Ms. Broadwell and Mr. Petraeus had set up private Gmail accounts to use for their communications, which included explicit details of a sexual nature, according to U.S. officials. But because Mr. Petraeus used a pseudonym, agents doing the monitoring didn’t immediately uncover that he was the one communicating with Ms. Broadwell.

I have to agree with Kevin: Continue reading →