McAulife Rips Off His Tutu On National TV

From the Karl Rove “I wish I’d never told Fred Barnes to make a big deal out of this” department:

BLITZER: Terry McAuliffe, when Wesley Clark was on that stage with Michael Moore, one of his campaign supporters, and Moore called President Bush a deserter and General Clark refused to distance himself from that comment right away, was that a huge blunder? You don’t believe that President Bush was a deserter, do you?

MCAULIFFE: Well, Wolf, in order to to be a deserter, you have to actually show up.

Let’s just deal with the facts. As you know, when President Bush got out of college in 1968, it was at the height of the draft. It’s well known that the president, former president, used some of his influence to get George Bush into the Texas National Guard.

He then wanted to go to Alabama and work on a Senate campaign. So he went to Alabama for a year while he was in the National Guard, and he never showed up.

I mean, I would call it AWOL. You call it whatever you want. But the issue is the president did not show up for the year he was in Alabama, when he was supposed to show up for the National Guard.

BLITZER: All right.

MCAULIFFE: And I think that’s what Mr. Moore was trying to say.

GILLESPIE: Wolf…

BLITZER: Hold on one second. I’m going to let you respond.

But I want to make sure I heard you right. Are you saying you don’t dispute what Michael Moore was saying, branding the president of the United States as having been a deserter?

MCAULIFFE: He never should have called him a deserter. There are other issues that you can say — AWOL, just didn’t show up for duty. But he shouldn’t have called him a deserter. Let’s get out of this discourse in American politics. Let’s just deal with the facts.

BLITZER: All right.

MCAULIFFE: The facts are that George Bush didn’t show up when he was supposed to in the National Guard, and that’s just the fact.

But I wouldn’t call him a deserter, nor should anybody call the president a deserter.

GILLESPIE: Well, Wolf, I’m glad to hear Terry acknowledge that what Michael Moore said was reprehensible. But Terry’s wrong that the president was AWOL in the National Guard. That is not accurate. The president served honorably in the National Guard.

This is one of the — the Democrats throw these charges out there. They’re just completely inaccurate, and it’s unfortunate that they stoop to this kind of politics.

But we’re going to hear more of these kind of attacks against the president, personal attacks, because they don’t want to talk about their policies because their policies are wrong for America. Raising taxes, reducing our national security expenditures and making us weaker when it comes to winning the war against terror are the wrong policies for America. That’s the bottom line, and that’s why President Bush is going to be successful in November.

BLITZER: Ted Gillespie and Terry McAuliffe, we’ll leave it right there. But we’ll have both of you back. I understand both of you will be here in New Hampshire on Tuesday. You’ll probably be on one of our shows here on CNN. Thanks very much for joining us.

Quick … the smelling salts!

Now, there was a time when it was considered a-ok to call the president a rapist, a murderer and pervert and a traitor all within the space of one segment of Hardball, and there was nary a complaint. They drew pictures of his penis, psychoanalysed both him and his wife, accused them of sexual deviancy, assault and corruption on an epic scale.

But, that was a different time. Let the word go forth that we must all line up behind our Dear Leader and NEVER, EVER even hint that he is anything less than perfect. It’s treasonous, actually. Terry McAuliffe is obviously an enemy combatant who belongs in a 3×5 cell in Gitmo.