Karl Rove, a former adviser to former President George W. Bush, received criticism this week when he said that President Barack Obama’s commencement speech to historically black colleges and universities amounted to a “political drive-by shooting.”
Rove appeared on Fox News on Monday morning after Obama’s commencement speech over the weekend.
The former White House aide said, “It is so unseemly for a former president to take the virtual commencement ceremony for a series of historically black colleges and universities and turn it into a political drive-by shooting.”
He continued, “I mean, this is a moment where these young graduates could be inspired to a life of service, to recognize that life is going to bring challenges and how we handle the challenges is going to demonstrate our character. There are lots of positive messages that the former president could have delivered.”
Rove went on, “But the news that we have out of this speech, out of this appearance is, ‘The pandemic has finally, fully, torn back the curtain that so many of the folks in charge know what they’re doing, don’t know what they’re doing, lot of them aren’t even pretending to be in charge.'”
He also accused Obama of slandering “not just the president, who is his political target and he made it clear a week ago that he was going to go after him, but he’s taken a slap at the vice president who has done an extremely effective job as head of the coronavirus task force.”
"It is so unseemly for a former president to take the virtual commencement ceremony for a series of historically black colleges and universities and turn it into a political drive-by shooting" — Karl Rove on Obama's commencement speech in which he indirectly criticized Trump pic.twitter.com/stZamQFhgF
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 18, 2020
The remarks were quickly criticized by figures like CNN contributor Keith Boykin, who wrote, “If Karl Rove thinks a black president speaking truth to power is a ‘political drive-by shooting,’ then a white guy lying about a black president’s birth certificate for 5 1/2 years must be a damn cross burning.”
If Karl Rove thinks a black president speaking truth to black students is a “political drive-by shooting,”
— Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) May 18, 2020
then a white guy lying about a black president’s birth certificate for 5 1/2 years must be a damn cross burning. https://t.co/oeNg0NcfOx
Former Obama White House aide Tommy Vietor was just as blunt, opining, “Karl Rove absolutely chose these words on purpose. Fox News will never cover the actual gun violence epidemic in this country. Instead they’ll book sad old hacks like Rove to racial resentment and tone police Obama while Trump tweets like a lunatic.”
https://twitter.com/TVietor08/status/1262388778930450445?s=20
Obama has been largely silent since during Donald Trump’s tenure but in a recently leaked phone call to his former staffers, Obama called the Trump team’s response to coronavirus “an absolute chaotic disaster.”