BUSH'S BRAIN
The Man Behind The Man
"I have no interest whatsoever in being in Washington DC. I'm happy right here."
When asked if he would head for the White House if Phil Gramm
the candidate he handled in 1996, won the Presidency
The Suspected Source of the Leak to Richard Novak of Valerie
Plame's Name
See This Story From The Archives
Is Bush's Top Advisor
And Someone America Should Become More Familiar With
Overview Of The Man
Best known for: George W. Bush's chief strategist. Consultant to U.S. Senators
Phil Gramm, Kay Bailey Hutchison and many other right-wing politicians.
Born: December 25, 1950 in Denver, and grew up in Colorado, Utah and Nevada.
Family: His father was a geologist. At age nine, Rove became a faithful
Republican when he backed Richard Nixon against John Kennedy.
Education: Attended nearly half a dozen colleges without getting a degree.
Profession: Teaches graduate students at the University of Texas.
Career: In the years of the Watergage scandal, Rove's career as a big-time
political handler began with a motley crew of friends and associates. He was
chairman of the College Republicans when George Herbert Walker Bush was chairman
of the state Republican Party in 1973. He won the presidency of the College
Republicans in a race against Terry Dolan. The late Lee Atwater, who later
became famous as the political attack dog for the Reagan-Bush team, managed
Rove's campaign. Dolan went on to become a Soft Money pioneer by helping form
the National Conservative Political Action Committee, then died of AIDS in 1986
at age 36. Dolan's advisers in his loss to Rove were Charlie Black, Paul
Manafort and Roger Stone. Those three were later instrumental in the success of
Ronald Reagan's 1984 campaign.
Atwater joined the consulting firm of Black, Manafort and Stone after the '84
election. The firm later worked for the 1988 Bush-Quayle campaign. Two of
Nixon's dirty tricksters also worked for Bush-Quayle: Frederick Malek, Bush's
Republican National Committee rep, who had compiled lists of Jews in the Bureau
of Labor Statistics as part of Nixon's investigation of a "Jewish Cabal;" and
Dwight Chapin, who was jailed for lying to a grand jury about hiring Donald
Sigretti to disrupt the 1972 Democratic primary campaign of Senator Edward
Muskie. Chapin worked under Manafort in 1988. The firm's other clients included
drug-connected Bahamian Prime Minister Oscar Pindling, Philippine dictator
Ferdinand Marcos, and UNITA, the South African-supported Angolan rebel group led
by CIA asset Jonas Savimbi. Lee Atwater lobbied for UNITA. All of which began
when Atwater was introduced to George Bush in 1973, by his good friend Karl
Rove.
In 1980, Bush hired Rove to help him run for president. He was the first person
Bush hired for the campaign. Atwater became chairman of the Republican National
Committee and one of Bush's closest political advisors. In 1981, when Bush
became Reagan's vice president, Rove started his consulting business, Karl Rove
& Co. His first direct mail client was Bill Clements, the first Republican in a
century to become Texas governor.
Rove began working for Bill Clements in 1978. Four years later, he was working
for Phil Gramm, who was in the U.S. House of Representatives as an old-style
conservative Texas Democrat. In 1984, Rove helped Gramm, now a Republican,
defeat Democrat Lloyd Doggett in the race for U.S. Senate. It was that same
year, 1984, that Rove handled direct-mail for the Reagan-Bush campaign. In 1986,
he helped Clements become governor a second time. In 1988, Rove helped Tom
Phillips to victory, the first Republican elected to the Texas Supreme Court.
Ten years later Republicans held all nine seats. Mark McKinnon, a former
Democratic consultant who defected to the Bush campaign, called Rove the "Bobby
Fischer of politics. He not only sees the board, he sees about 20 moves ahead."
Rove has been closely advising George W. Bush since he announced he was a
candidate for Governor in November 1993. By January 1994, Bush had spent
$613,930 on the race against incumbent Ann Richards. Over half of that,
$340,579, went to Rove. In a state long dominated by Democrats, albeit
right-wing ones, every statewide elected office was, by 1999, held by a
Republican. Many of those politicians succeeded with the help of Rove. During
the November election, the half-dozen candidates he advised were all winners.
Bush has called Rove a close friend and confidant, and a man with good judgment.
Almost a quarter of all the money Bush's presidential exploratory committee
spent from January to the end of March, 1999, went to Rove's consulting firm
($220,228). Rove soon sold his consulting firm to devote himself to the Bush
campaign. Long known locally as a political kingmaker, the possibility of a
second Bush in the White House has made Rove more famous.
Sources: Robert Bryce, "The Man Behind the Candidate," The Austin Chronicle,
March 18, 1994, pp. 23, 28-30, 32-33; Robert Bryce, "The fab four:Meet the
people maneuvering behind the scenes to put George W. Bush in the White House,"
Salon magazine, June 16, 1999, (http://www.salon.com/news/feature/1999/06/16/advisors/index1.html);
Paul Brancato, "Bush League" illustrated cards (Forestville, California: Eclipse
Enterprises, 1989), pp. 5, 13, 18.
Exposing Karl Rove
by Wayne Madsen
He's America's Joseph Goebbels. As a 21-year old Young Republican in Texas, Karl
Rove not only pimped for Richard Nixon's chief political dirty tricks strategist
Donald Segretti but soon caught the eye of the incoming Republican National
Committee Chairman, George H. W. Bush. Rove's dirty tricks on behalf of Nixon's
1972 campaign catapulted Rove onto the national stage. From his Eagle's Nest in
the West Wing of the White House, Rove now directs a formidable political dirty
tricks operation and disinformation mill.
Since his formative political years when he tried to paint World War II B-24
pilot and hero George McGovern as a left-wing peacenik through his mid-level
career as a planter of disinformation in the media on behalf of Texas and
national GOP candidates to his current role as Dubya's "Svengali," Rove has
practiced the same style of slash and burn politics as did his Nixonian mentor
Segretti. Many of us remember the Lincolnesque Senator Ed Muskie breaking down
in tears during the 1972 campaign over Segretti-planted false stories in a New
Hampshire newspaper that accused Mrs. Muskie of being a heavy smoker, drinker,
and cusser and accused Muskie of uttering a slur in describing New Hampshire's
French Canadian population. Rove's hero also forged letters on fake Muskie
campaign letterhead, disrupted rallies and fundraising dinners, and spread false
stories about the sex lives of candidates. Segretti's brush also smeared George
McGovern, George Wallace, Shirley Chisholm, and McGovern's first vice
presidential choice, Senator Tom Eagleton. Segretti of course did not go on to a
high-level White House job -- he was sentenced to six months in federal prison
for distributing illegal campaign material.
In many respects, however, the apprentice Rove has far exceeded the chicanery
and evil-mindedness of his mentor Segretti. Rove is a tech-savvy puppet master
for Bush. Take, for example, last June's discovery of a "lost" CD-ROM in
Lafayette Park across from the White House. Contained on the CD was a PowerPoint
presentation given by White House political director Ken Mehlman to Rove on the
strategy for next Tuesday's off-year election. The slide show showed First
Brother Jeb Bush being vulnerable in Florida. Jeb Bush later joked that the disc
was part of a plot cooked up by him and his brother to make it appear that he
was vulnerable in order to rally an otherwise complacent GOP base in the
Sunshine State. Or was it a joke? Jeb Bush and his political minions like
Katherine Harris have shown us that if anyone thinks what the GOP has done in
Florida is funny they have an incredibly sick sense of humor.
Rove's own tendency to be sick-minded originates with his mentor Segretti. The
2000 GOP primary was a chance for Rove to hone his skills in dirty tricks. His
target then was Senator John McCain who appeared to be within striking distance
of Dubya in South Carolina after the then-GOP maverick's surprise upset victory
in New Hampshire. Rove's operation proceeded to target McCain with false
stories: McCain was a stoolie for his captors in the Hanoi Hilton (this from a
lunatic self-promoting Vietnam "veteran"); McCain fathered a black daughter out
of wedlock (a despicable reference to McCain's adopted Bangladeshi daughter);
Cindy McCain's drug "abuse"; and even McCain's "homosexuality." In the spirit of
Segretti, Rove engineered a victory for Dubya but at the cost of trashing an
honorable man and his family. Muskie, McGovern, Carter, Mondale, Dukakis, Gore,
Hart, Tsongas, Clinton, Biden, Dole, Perot, and others had all seen the Segretti/Rove
slash and burn tactics before.
And Rove's penchant for fascistic demagoguery and outright lying continues to
this very day. After Paul Wellstone's sons asked that Vice President Dick Cheney
not attend the Minneapolis memorial service for their father, mother, and
sister, the White House explained that the real reason wasn't the surviving
Wellstone family's abhorrence for Cheney but the fact the family didn't want
Cheney's Secret Service protection to interfere with public access to the
service. Of course, the Rove and Ari Fleischer disinformation machine forgot to
take into account that two attendees, Bill and Hillary Clinton, had their own
Secret Service details. But such is the case with a White House that takes its
lessons from Goebbels and the editorial staff of the old Soviet News Agency Tass.
Rove's dirty fingerprints could also be seen in the Iowa Senate race between Tom
Harkin and GOP candidate Greg Ganske. A few months ago, a story was leaked that
the Harkin campaign had employed a spy within the Ganske campaign. To put this
in a Rove context, we must go back to the 1986 Texas gubernatorial race in which
Rove's candidate Bill Clements was taking on Democratic Governor Mark White.
Just before a debate between the two candidates, Rove spun the story that his
office had been bugged. No proof. But the insinuation that White's people had
carried out the bugging was reported by the media. In the election, Clements
defeated White. Rove stashed away more political capital into his already heavy
knapsack of ill-gotten IOUs.
During the 2000 presidential campaign, we were obviously treated to more Rove
chicanery when the following Associated Press story hit the wires: "A woman who
worked for a media company that produced ads for President George W. Bush's
campaign was indicted for secretly mailing a videotape of Bush practicing for a
debate to Vice President Al Gore's campaign." Yes, that videotape, along with a
120-page briefing book, just happened to turn up in Gore's headquarters as fast
as the CD-ROM turned up in Lafayette Park. The sourcerer Segretti must be very
proud of his apprentice. In 1980, no Republican bemoaned the fact that Jimmy
Carter's debate briefing book was swiped and found its way into the hands of the
Reagan-Bush campaign. In Rove's world, its only an affront when someone "steals"
your own campaign secrets and not when your are on the receiving end of a heist.
"If you're not with me, you're against me." Bush's binary view of "good and
evil" and "friend and enemy" sits well with the Rove strategy. Georgia's
conservative but libertarian-minded Representative Bob Barr found out about this
in last August's primary when his GOP primary opponent John Linder began
spreading around stories that Barr was "soft on terrorism." Because Barr was
skeptical about a number of aspects of the Bush-Ashcroft USA PATRIOT Act, he
became a target for the Rove machine. However, it was likely that Barr became a
target earlier on when he supported Steve Forbes against Bush in the 2000
primary. Bush apparently means to say, "If you've not always been with me,
you're against me." It must have really been a dilemma for Bush and Rove to have
to come to the support of John Sununu, Jr. in the New Hampshire Senate race.
Although Daddy made George W. unceremoniously give the axe to Sununu's father as
White House Chief of Staff during the Bush 41 administration, the man who the
junior Sununu defeated in the primary, Bob Smith, was even more of a problem. He
had the temerity to quit the Republican Party in 2000 and run against Dubya for
President. So in Bushspeak, which is obviously borrowed from Forrest Gump's
scripts, "if you're less with me than the other guy, you're more against me."
Undoubtedly, Rove was also behind the campaign to "get" Georgia Representative
Cynthia McKinney who was the first nationally-known politician to question what
Bush may have known beforehand about 9-11. She was defeated by a former
Republican state judge who had supported the wacky Alan Keyes for President in
2000. Never mind, McKinney was "less with Bush" than Keyes, so it was more
important to get McKinney who was "more against" Bush.
In all seriousness, rewarding the GOP on November 5 will only increase the
appetite of Rove to amass more and more power into the White House. The advent
of a Democratic-controlled Senate and House might even begin to spell the end of
the road for Segretti's star pupil. German opposition figures in the mid-1930s
often lamented the fact that they could have stopped the rise of the Nazis if
only they had been more united in a common front when they had a chance.
However, they fell prey to the media manipulation of Goebbels and fought among
themselves more than they did against the menace from the far right. We
Americans also have an early opportunity to stem an out-of-control and
anti-constitutional regime with the Rasputin-like Rove at the after steerage
helm of our ship of state. That opportunity presents itself next
Tuesday--Election Day.
Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and columnist.
He wrote the introduction to the book Forbidden Truth.
Nibbling On The Presidents Ear
By J. Reaves
George W. Bush doesn't like to travel, and, by all accounts, he doesn't
particularly like giving campaign speeches. But he did both until his throat was
raw and his nerves frayed in the weeks leading up to Tuesday's elections. He did
it because Karl Rove told him it was a good idea. And Tuesday night, voters
across the country told the President that Rove was right.
Rove, the President's most trusted political strategist and arguably one of the
shrewdest man in Washington, won't publicly acknowledge the outcome of the
midterms as any kind of personal affirmation. He'll attribute the Republican
gains in the House and Senate to the intelligence of the voters or the general
mood of the country. Or, more likely, he'll point to the President's appeal -
Rove has no time for basking in past successes. This self-described "very
competitive guy" is already moving on to the next big thing (which in this case
may be the debate over war with Iraq).
For months before the midterm elections, the White House worried about the
outcome of certain key races, calculating the chances that Republicans would
maintain control of the House of Representatives (pretty good) and take back the
Senate (not so good.) Rove, who has been called a "control freak" by more than
one colleague, decided the White House would do very little good standing around
worrying about the close races, but could do a great deal of good by actually
getting involved - even if it meant tying the President's reputation to the
races he was supporting.
And so the President's whirlwind stump schedule was born. Senate races in New
Hampshire, Georgia, South Dakota and Minnesota were shaping up to be
nail-biters, and so Bush was dispatched to fundraisers, get-out-the-vote events
and rallies, touting the experience and political wisdom of John Sununu, Saxby
Chambliss and Norm Coleman. The President also spent time in Florida, speaking
on behalf of his brother Jeb, whose incumbency to the governor's mansion was
under siege. Every one of those campaigns took home a victory Tuesday night. And
while it's hard to measure precisely the influence the President had on voters,
it's downright impossible to discount that influence completely.
That kind of success is pretty much par for the course for Rove since he joined
the Bush campaign in 2000. Rove is considered by both Democrats and Republicans
to have one of the country's sharpest and most instinctive political minds. He
has made plenty of enemies along his road to success; some say his personality,
which is jovial at times, can turn nasty when he (or his candidate) is in
trouble. Others say he'll do just about anything to win.
Rove, 48, never graduated from college, leaving the University of Utah in 1971
to become executive director of the College Republicans. He began working for
the former President Bush during a stint at the Republican National Committee in
1973, then moved to Texas to join the elder Bush's political action committee.
He stayed in Austin for years, divorced his first wife and remarried, working as
a consultant and running a mail order business until 1999, when George W. Bush
persuaded Rove to come work on his campaign. Two years later, Rove was ensconced
in the White House, launching his current career as presidential travel agent.
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