Karl Rove slammed Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) in a new op-ed and compared her rhetoric, which has been criticized as anti-Semitic, with that of “white nationalists” who marched in Charlottesville, Va.
In the piece published on Fox News’s website Monday, Rove criticized Omar for celebrating the House passage of an anti-hate resolution that condemned “anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, racism, and other forms of bigotry.”
“Why was Ms. Omar proud?” Rove, the former deputy chief of staff and and senior adviser to former President George W. Bush, asked.
“Did she not read the resolution? It didn’t use her name, but did depict her anti-Semitic insults as morally equivalent to the hateful speech of white nationalists in Charlottesville,” he added, referring to the deadly confrontation between white nationalists and counterprotesters in 2017.
{mosads}He also compared Omar’s comments to the “bigoted anger of the white supremacist who killed nine African American worshipers in a South Carolina church,” a reference to Dylan Roof.
Rove asserted the broad anti-hate resolution was prompted by Omar’s “repeated anti-Semitic blasts,” citing recent posts on Twitter, most notably her comments about support for Israel being “all about the Benjamins baby.”
Omar later apologized for the posts and deleted them.
While the House resolution originated in response to Omar’s heavily criticized remarks, it went through several changes to include language condemning all forms of hate.
The resolution passed overwhelmingly, with only 23 Republicans voting against it. Some of those lawmakers said it did not strongly and directly address Omar’s comments.
Rove in the op-ed argued that Omar supported the resolution because it did not directly name her.
“Maybe Ms. Omar is deluding herself that, by keeping her name out of the resolution and her seat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, the measure does not pertain to her one whit,” he wrote.
He closed the piece by saying “it would have been better for the country and the Democratic Party to have kept the resolution focused on Ms. Omar and her comments and sanctioned her for them,” adding that Democrats will “rue the day” they broadened the resolution and shifted its focus from Omar.