President Bush’s chief policy adviser, Karl Rove, set off a national firestorm Wednesday night when he told a New York Conservative Party group that liberals wanted to “offer therapy and understanding for our attackers” in the wake of the September 11 attacks, while conservatives “saw the savagery of 9/11 and the attacks and prepared for war.”

By yesterday morning, Mr. Rove’s words, delivered in Manhattan just miles north of the World Trade Center site, had spread around the five boroughs and beyond.

“Karl Rove should immediately and fully apologize for his remarks or he should resign,” the Senate Democratic leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, said. “I hope the president will join me in repudiating these remarks.”

Senator Kerry said: “For Karl Rove to equate Democratic policy on terror to ‘indictments’ and ‘therapy’ is an outrageous attempt to divide the nation at just the moment we must be unified.” He pointed out that soon after the attack, the Senate, on a 98-0 vote, and the House, on a 420-1 vote, authorized the president to use “all necessary and appropriate force” against terror.

Senators Schumer, Clinton, Corzine, Lautenberg, Dodd, and Lieberman wrote a letter to Mr. Rove asking him to retract his comment.

“Your comments were inaccurate and inflammatory,” the coalition of tristate senators, all of them Democrats, wrote. “To come into the heart of New York City, which has suffered so deeply and is still recovering from those savage attacks, to try to score partisan, political points at the expense of the 3,000 victims and their families was unacceptable and opportunistic. It was a slap in the face to the unity that America achieved after September 11, 2001.”

Mrs. Clinton also grilled Defense Secretary Rumsfeld on the comments at a hearing of the Senate Armed Service Committee. Mr. Rumsfeld acknowledged that Americans united after September 11 and said: “I think that it is unfortunate when things become so polarized or so politicized. … It isn’t helpful.”

By day’s end, the president had not repudiated the remarks, and his press secretary, Scott McClellan, said at a briefing that angry cries from Democrats yesterday constituted “partisan attacks.” He said Mr. Rove was talking about “different philosophies for winning the war on terrorism.”

Back in New York, Mayor Bloomberg, who welcomed Republicans to town for the 2004 national convention, did not call for Mr. Rove’s resignation but, in a statement released by his press office, seemed to chastise the political adviser for inserting partisan politics into the discussion of the attacks of September 11.

“In all of the conversations I’ve had with the families and survivors of the attacks, and with the families of those service personnel lost in the war on terror, no one has ever raised issues of ideology or partisanship,” the mayor said in a statement. “We owe it to those we lost to keep partisan politics out of the discussion and keep alive the united spirit that came out of 9/11.”

The chairman of the New York State Democratic Party, Herman “Denny” Farrell Jr. of Manhattan, blasted Mr. Rove for using September 11 to “further partisan political gains” and criticized the mayor for not being tough enough on Mr. Rove.

“For four years, New Yorkers have had to put up with a mayor who has consistently been afraid to take on George Bush,” Assemblyman Farrell said in a statement. “Last year, Mike Bloomberg threw George Bush’s coronation party and enthusiastically endorsed his re-election. Today his utter failure to repudiate Karl Rove’s ugly and divisive comments demonstrates yet again that he is willing to put his loyalty to the White House ahead of his commitment to New York.”

Some of the Democrats attempting to take Mr. Bloomberg’s place at City Hall also took aim at Mr. Rove and Mr. Bloomberg.

The Democratic front-runner, Fernando Ferrer, said the mayor’s “refusal to condemn” the “divisive and outrageous” comments by Mr. Rove was an “insult” to New Yorkers.

“I call on Bloomberg to demand immediate action by President Bush to reject Karl Rove’s disgusting remarks and make very clear to the people of New York City that this nation stands united – we understand that on 9/11 we were one people, New Yorkers and Americans,” he said.

The speaker of the City Council, Gifford Miller, told reporters: “This is a new low, even for Karl Rove. What it proves is that there is no tragedy that he won’t exploit, no lie he won’t tell, to advance his right-wing radical agenda.” He said if the president has “an ounce of shame or decency,” he will kick Mr. Rove out of his administration. He also said Mr. Bloomberg should demand an apology from Mr. Bush.

Not everyone, however, was calling for apologies.

In Albany, Governor Pataki told reporters that Mr. Rove’s remarks, which he heard on Wednesday night, were not divisive. He said he thanks God that Mr. Bush was president when the terrorists struck, and he said he would not repudiate the comments by Mr. Rove, as requested by Mrs. Clinton.

“Senator Clinton might think about her propensity to allow outrageous statements from the other side that are far beyond political dialogue, insulting every Republican, comparing our soldiers to Nazis or Soviet gulag guards and never requesting an apology,” he said. The governor was alluding to a recent comment by Senator Durbin of Illinois critical of American guards at the Guantanamo detention facility in Cuba.

A man whose firefighter son died on September 11, Lee Ielpi, also said he supported Mr. Rove’s comments.

“I think he spoke from his heart,”Mr. Ielpi told The New York Sun in a telephone interview. “I think he said the feelings of a lot of people. I think he was pretty accurate in what he said.”

While Mr. Ielpi said he didn’t think Mr. Rove’s statements represented politics run amok, he said he’s concerned that politics is going to get in the way of the memorial at the trade center site.

“The World Trade Center site has no room for any politics whatsoever, now or in the future,” he said. “I feel that the International Freedom Center may compromise that issue.”

The chairman of the Conservative Party, Michael Long, who introduced Mr. Rove at Wednesday’s dinner, said the presidential adviser was giving an analysis of the differing mind-sets of conservatives and liberals.

“I think it was appropriate and very much on target and very well received in the audience,” Mr. Long said. “It wasn’t inflammatory at all.”

He said yesterday’s hoopla surrounding the speech was about politics, not substance.

“What’s happening here is that the liberals don’t like George W. Bush,” he said. “They despise this president and they certainly despise Karl Rove.”

Near the end of his prepared address Wednesday, Mr. Rove said that conservatives and liberals differ on national security.

“Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 and the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers,” he said, according to a text circulated by the White House. “In the wake of 9/11, conservatives believed it was time to unleash the might and power of the United States military against the Taliban; in the wake of 9/11, liberals believed it was time to … submit a petition. I am not joking. Submitting a petition is precisely what Moveon.org did. It was a petition imploring the powers that be to ‘use moderation and restraint in responding to the … terrorist attacks against the United States.’

“I don’t know about you,” Mr. Rove said, “but moderation and restraint is not what I felt as I watched the Twin Towers crumble to the earth, a side of the Pentagon destroyed, and almost 3,000 of our fellow citizens perish in flames and rubble.

“Moderation and restraint is not what I felt – and moderation and restraint is not what was called for. It was a moment to summon our national will – and to brandish steel. …

“Conservatives saw what happened to us on 9/11 and said: ‘We will defeat our enemies,'” Mr. Rove said. “Liberals saw what happened to us and said: ‘We must understand our enemies.’ Conservatives see the United States as a great nation engaged in a noble cause; liberals see the United States and they see … Nazi concentration camps, Soviet gulags, and the killing fields of Cambodia.”

After summarizing the comments of Senator Durbin on the Senate floor, Mr. Rove said: “Al Jazeera now broadcasts to the region the words of Senator Durbin, certainly putting America’s men and women in uniform in greater danger. No more needs to be said about the motives of liberals.”