Karl Rove

Boy Genius: Karl Rove, the Architect of George W. Bush's Remarkable Political Triumphs
$16.95
If you ever thought Karl Rove might be a man of questionable morals, but just didn't know enough to be sure, this book will make your jaw drop. What is truly remarkable is that a man of his low standards, willing to do anything regardless of ethics to win, could be closely associated with the most powerful man in the free world.

Karl Rove, I Love You
$29.95
You can barley describe this film without a spoiler alert every other sentence. Great story telling that just doesn't go where you expect to or where YOU personally might want it to go! It's one of those fine, and fun, examples of film making where every viewer will take something different away from it depending on what point of view they went in to see it. Many times political satire will take a point of view and keep hitting that nail on the head. Karl Rove I Love You is more like a game of Wack'a Mole! Just when you think they're gonna put another nail in Rove's coffin TWO MORE pop up somewhere else. In these times of Obama mania no film could be more relevant to our time.

Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential
$21.95
An interesting tale about how Karl Rove, son of a Rocky mountain geologist, and a "political savant extraordinaire," a virtual Bobby Fischer of politics, with the same kind of a political instincts and genius as Bill Clinton - was, since childhood, bent on becoming a "top behind the scenes man." And next to Dick Morris, he has perhaps succeeded in becoming the greatest one of our (or any) times.

Rove, single-handedly found, mentored, and fashioned a reluctant under motivated and under-performing peripatetic warrior, composed of the most meager of raw materials, into a conservative political superstar.

Left to his own devices, "Bush junior," would probably have preferred nothing more than remaining a spoiled, underdeveloped, under motivated, misdirected, mediocre, "kick-about" for the rest of his life. However, Rove saw, as few others did, a "diamond in the rough," and set about chipping away at the lackluster and peripatetic outer shell to get at the hidden untapped, underdeveloped inner treasures.

Rove, in the best of his Svengali-like roles, not only became the Rasputin to the Western World, but since every decision Bush has made -- from his two terms as governor of Texas through his two terms as President of the U.S. - have been "cleared" by Rove, he literally became not just Bush's alter ego, but his "uber-ego." Rove quite literally became Bush's brain. So much so, that, as the author notes: "it is hard to know where Bush's brain begins and Roves' ends."

How did Rove polish the dull and listless GW into spanking shiny brand new money? In the liveliest of prose, chocked full of lush and tasty details, this book gives the answer: Rove, like the inventor of the term itself, Dick Morris, is nothing but a "triangulator." His political philosophy is the same as Morris': See what the polls say, and then "spin the rhetoric" so that (even when it is not so) the President's policies "sound like" and "look like" what the President's political constituency thinks they want.

Rove owes a deep unacknowledged debit to the one who invented and patented this process, Dick Morris. Since Morris invented the process of triangulation during the Clinton administration, this period in U.S. history may someday be known as the "era of the super power-political triangulators." (no pun intended).

A fabulous but disturbing read. Five Stars

Rove Exposed: How Bush's Brain Fooled America
$12.95
Others have described Rove as "grooming Bush" (vs. a subordinate), shaping policy based on politics, co-president, and manager of a never-ending Bush campaign. However, Moore does not make it clear whether Bush is primarily following political advice to determine policy, or using political advice to implement desired policy - I suspect it is both.

One of Rove's favorite models is Mark Hanna, businessman and counsel to President McKinley. Hanna resisted government efforts to break up giant corporate and mining trusts, thereby providing them with the ability to control labor and wages, while raising a very large amount (for those days) to elect McKinley. Not surprising, Bush (Rove?) has followed an analogous path, supporting business at almost every turn, while raising very large amounts for his campaigns. However, Bush (Rove?) did bend his devotion to free trade (NAFTA, CAFTA) to provide steel tariffs in an effort to boost voter support in W. Virginia and Pennsylvania.

Moore also traces Rove's history of dirty tricks - including bugging his own office to boost his Republican client for governor (battery only had 10-hour life, was fresh when discovered, there was no evidence of a break-in, and Rove had shortly before seen a similar tactic used in a movie), working with an FBI henchman (later shown to have planted evidence in the Ruby Ridge murder trial) to pursue political enemies, having surrogates attack Gov. Anne Richards, Sen. John McCain, and Sen. John Kerry with vicious whisper campaigns (respectively - lesbian, fathering a black child and mentally unbalanced, and not the brave hero he appeared to be).

Another interesting incident involved Rove campaigning for Chair of the College Republicans. Through "aggressive methods" (challenging as many opponent electors as possible through the flimsiest of reasons), the election became a tie that was appealed to George Bush ('41) when he was Chair of the Republican Party. Bush chose Rove based on his anger at Rove's opponent's exposing Rove's teaching of dirty tricks, then later asked Rove to help '43. (Loyalty over all - doesn't say much for Bush '41 either.)

Finally, Moore suggests that Rove supported a strategy of expanding the War on Terror to Iraq, as Osama was not being caught and Iraq would provide a more attractive conventional opportunity. The Democrats then ended up between a rock and a hard place, per Rove's machinations - pressure for the Iraq resolution was intense as the War on Terror had already been declared, and the situation was acerbated by Bush's claim that "the greater the threat, the greater the risk of inaction" - setting up a scenario where searching for facts was viewed as counterproductive. In addition, talk against Iraq would have looked silly if it had been known that North Korea already had the bomb - so the White House (Rove?) kept this information under wraps for 12 days until after passage of the Iraq resolution.