Democrats are demanding that White House adviser Karl Rove immediately retract and apologize for comments that liberals responded to the Sept. 11 terrorist strikes by wanting to ``prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers.''
``The one thing New York has had since Sept. 11 is unity,'' said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. ``To inject politics into this and to defame a large number of people'' is outrageous, he said. ``It's not what New York and America is all about.''
Rove, Bush's chief political adviser, said in a speech Wednesday that ``liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers.'' Conservatives, he said in the speech to the New York state Conservative Party just a few miles north of Ground Zero, ``saw the savagery of 9/11 and the attacks and prepared for war.''
Rove said the Democratic Party made the mistake of calling for ``moderation and restraint'' after the terrorist attacks.
Schumer said Democrats were drafting a letter asking Rove to retract his remarks. Jim Manley, spokesman for Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., also called on President Bush to ``immediately repudiate Karl Rove's offensive and outrageous comments.'' |