All About Carl Rove

Bush's Brain

See No Karl Hear No Karl

Click Here to See Karl Rove Connections with Large Corporate Scandals part 1

Click Here to See Karl Rove Connections with Large Corporate Scandals part 2

Karl Rove and the Cult of Savviness in Our Political Press

Elided: to omit, leave out, or strike from consideration. Green is saying that they overlooked how vicious he has been. My explanation: they admired how savvy he has been. Mark Halperin of Time magazine and ABC News lectured his colleagues on this days before the 2006 elections (Hat tip Eric Boehlert). You must admire Rove or you are out-of-touch!

Democrats, Republicans, and the Jacob Weisbergs of the world can pick nits all they want with Rove -- that Bush isn't the most successful president ever, that Rove can't walk on water, that Bush lost the popular vote in 2000, and that they both have made plenty of political and policy mistakes. All of that is true. The reality is, though, that Bush and Rove, as a team, have never lost to Democrats, and their wins in 2002 and 2004 defied the odds in many ways.

If Democrats win a big victory next Tuesday, it will be interesting to hear Rove's explanation. But for goodness' sake, as Abramowitz was smart enough to demonstrate, people who live in Bethesda, Chevy Chase, and Manhattan should understand that in much of red America, Rove is beloved and respected, and they should ask themselves why that is.

Nitpickers vs. winners is how the cult of savviness frames things. And in that cult Halperin would qualify as a high priest.

Amid all the press coverage of Rove's farewell announcement yesterday, did you notice how no one spoke of knowing Karl Rove as a source? Matt Cooper is one we know about because of the trial of Scooter Libby. ("Spoke to Rove on double super secret background for about two mins before he went on vacation ...") There are many others we do not know about because they agreed to keep his name a secret. But make no mistake: they are also the ones writing the "balanced" and non-committal retrospectives, the ones with 50-50 headlines like "Rove bows out despised and deified." (Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen in the Politico.)

Green's colleague at the Atlantic, Mark Ambinder, marveled at it: "Boy, did Karl Rove get in his gut the biases, predilections, worldviews, habits, ticks and insecurities of the national media." I agree with this. And with Ambinder's observation that part of Rove's "realignment theory" was to "delegitimize, decertify and discombobulate the press; control it with psychological power; reduce its influence on the political process," while simultaneously seducing reporters with his credentials as a winner and his savvy take on American politics. (See my posts on press rollback and decertification, policies for which Rove was "the architect.")

Green was all over the talk shows yesterday because of his recent article in the Atlantic on what went wrong with The Rove Presidency. (Subscribers only) But it's his study from three years ago that tells the tale about Rove and the press. He noted that close readings of Rove's methods are relatively few. "Yet as I interviewed people who knew Rove, they brought up examples of unscrupulous tactics -- some of them breathtaking -- as a matter of course." Rove had the "he said, she said" press figured out, according to Green:

He seems to understand -- indeed, to count on -- the media's unwillingness or inability, whether from squeamishness, laziness, or professional caution, ever to give a full estimate of him or his work. It is ultimately not just Rove's skill but his character that allows him to perform on an entirely different plane. Along with remarkable strategic skills, he has both an understanding of the media's unstated self-limitations and a willingness to fight in territory where conscience forbids most others.

That's the real Karl Rove. But you wouldn't know it from the "despised and deified" coverage we saw yesterday.

* * *

Jay Rosen teaches journalism at New York University and writes the blog PressThink, where this first appeared. He is also co-publisher, with Arianna Huffington, of OffTheBus, which is open platform campaign coverage, meaning anyone with something to add can contribute. If you're interested sign up here.

Read More: Breaking Politics News, Karl Rove, George W. Bush, U.S. Democratic Party, U.S. Republican Party, U.S. Congress, Chevy Chase, Scooter Libby

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 Forbidden Truth.

Madsen can be reached at: WMadsen777@aol.com

MORE ABOUT KARL ROVE

The following information is from SourceWatch at http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Karl_Rove

Republican political strategist Karl C. Rove is best known as George W. Bush's top advisor, earning him the nickname "Bush's Brain." He was appointed as Assistant to the President and Senior Advisor to the President by Bush during his first term. After Bush's 2004 reelection, Rove was appointed deputy White House chief of staff.

Early Years

Rove was born December 25, 1950, in Denver, Colorado. Although he attended the University of Utah, the University of Texas at Austin and George Mason University, he does not hold a degree. (http://www.csbs.utah.edu/new.pdf) Rove reportedly dropped out of the University of Utah to become the executive director of the College Republican National Committee (CRNC) from 1970-1972." (http://www.who2.com/karlrove.html) He then went on to become CRNC National Chairman for 1973-1974.

Robert Bryce wrote in the Austin Chronicle in March 2000, that Rove, "an avid student of history, ... probably knows more about the American political process than many college professors. Despite that fact, Rove has never had time to finish his college degree. Over the past three decades, he has attended nearly half a dozen colleges, and he's currently 2000 within spitting distance of getting his degree in political science at UT. He has been provisionally accepted into the school's doctoral program in government." (http://weeklywire.com/ww/03-20-00/austin_pols_feature.html)

Texas Work

Slowly working his way up the political ladder doing campaign work for a number of Texas Republicans, Rove earned a reputation of being a shrewd political strategist. (http://www.crnc.org/page.asp?LinkID=119) In 1980, he ran George Herbert Walker Bush's unsuccessful primary campaign for president against Ronald Reagan. He also worked for Senator Phil Gramm.

He founded a political consulting firm, Karl Rove & Company, in Austin, Texas in 1981. Rove helped George W. Bush win the Texas gubernatorial election in 1994. Then served as chief strategists for Bush's presidential campaign in 2000. During Roves years in Texas, he earn a reputation for being a savage political strategist, willing to engage in dirty tricks. Some of the tricks associated with Rove have been detailed by journalists James Moore and Wayne Slater in their book Bush's Brain.

Austin Chronicle's Robert Bryce wrote in 2000 that "Rove has the same killer quality that [Republican strategist] Lee Atwater had. He's super-confident, and a bit of a show-off. He loves to recount facts and figures regarding delegates, historical vote counts, and presidential election strategies from the past 100 years. That pedantic style, combined with lots of winning campaigns, has made him, without doubt, the most powerful political consultant in Texas. And although many politicos look to him for guidance, he denies that consultants create an image for a candidate. 'That assumes you can fool everybody,' he told [Bryce] during an interview several years ago, 'that the masses are asses. People are pretty damn smart. What you've got to do is present your case in the best light possible, with credibility and integrity.'"   (http://weeklywire.com/ww/03-20-00/austin_pols_feature.html)

According to one online biography, "He previously served as a member of the Board of International Broadcasting, which oversees operations of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and served on the board of the McDonald Observatory. Rove also taught at the LBJ School of Public Affairs and in the Journalism Department at the University of Texas at Austin."(http://www.results.gov/leadership/bio_383.html)

Another biography credits Rove with have a broad range of clients, including, "over 75 Republican U.S. Senate, Congressional and gubernatorial candidates in 24 states, as well as the Moderate Party of Sweden." (http://www.csbs.utah.edu/new.pdf)

White House Years

Karl Rove accompanied his candidate George Walker Bush to Washington in 2001. Rove became Bush's number one advisor, being given a newly created position Special Advisor to the President. During Bush's first term, Rove was credited with influencing and shaping White House policy to best support the President's reelection bid. At the time, he managed "the Office of Political Affairs, the Office of Public Liaison and the Office of Strategic Initiatives at the White House." (http://www.who2.com/karlrove.html)

Although he was never directly implicated, fingers in Washington pointed on several occasions at Rove as the source of underhanded stunts to discredit and undermine critics of Bush. In particular, the American Prospect's Murray S. Waas ties Rove to the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame in retaliation for her husband Joseph Wilson's exposure of White House exaggerations concerning the nuclear threat posed by Iraq.  (http://www.prospect.org/webfeatures/2004/03/waas-m-03-08.html)

In February 2005, Rove was appointed deputy White House chief of staff. (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/02/20050208-13.html) In his new role, Rove's responsibilities include coordinating policy between the White House Domestic Policy Council, National Economic Council, National Security Council and Homeland Security Council. (http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=7573881)

Social Security

One of Rove's new jobs was orchestrating the campaign to sell Bush's top domestic policy issue: Social Security privatization. The Hill reported in March 2005 that Rove had met with business lobbyists friendly with the administration to coordinate the push for personal retirement accounts. (http://thehill.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/030105/rove.html)

"I don't think there is any question that Karl Rove is masterminding the whole Social Security strategy," Stephen Moore, president of the Washington-based Free Enterprise Fund, which backs private savings accounts, told Bloomberg News. "The White House feels it can't afford to lose on this."   (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=av31qz5pmM7Y&refer=us)

Democratic Response to 9/11

In a June 22, 2005 speech to the New York Conservative Party Rove argued that the starkest illustration of the differences between conservative and liberal values was in the response to the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. "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.

"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'," he said.   (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/24/AR2005062400097.html)

Books and Films

James Moore and Wayne Slater, Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush

Presidential, John Wiley & Sons, February 2003. (ISBN 0471423270)

Lou Dubose, Jan Reid and Carl M. Cannon, Boy Genius: Karl Rove, the Brains

Behind the Remarkable Political Triumph of George W. Bush, January 21, 2003. (ISBN 1586481924)

Michael Lind, Made In Texas: George W. Bush and the Southern Takeover of American Politics December 17, 2002 (ISBN 0465041213)

Bush's Brain (http://www.bushsbrain.com/) (2004) by filmmakers Michael Paradies Shoob and Joseph Mealey

Profiles & Websites

Profile: "Karl Rove" (http://rightweb.irc-online.org/ind/rove/rove.php) at RightWeb (accessed July 4, 2005).

"Karl Rove" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Rove) in the Wikipedia. (http://search.looksmart.com/p/browse/us1/us317836/us552286/us53358/us220517/us263940/us10159508/) at LookSmart.com.

(http://dir.yahoo.com/Government/U_S__Government/Executive_Branch/

"Karl Rove" (http://www.politicalstrategy.org/ammo/ammorove_karl.htm) at PoliticalStrategy.com.

"Events Related to Karl Rove" (2001-2005)

(http://www.harpers.org/KarlRove.html) Harper's Magazine website.

College Republican National Committee Alumni page (http://www.crnc.org).

Articles & Commentary

1999

Robert Bryce, The Can't-Miss Kid (http://weeklywire.com/ww/06-01-99/austin_pols_feature1.html), Austin Chronicle, June 1, 1999.

2001

Timothy Noah, "Is Karl Rove Too Ethical To Obey Ethics Rules?" (http://www.slate.com/id/1007927/) Slate, July 2, 2001.

Timothy J. Burger, "Bush Aide Hid Business Link: Stayed part-owner of big-bucks political consulting firm," (http://www.politicaljustice.com/boards/topic.cgi?forum=2&topic=126) Daily News, August 21, 2001.

2002

Wayne Madsen, "Exposing Karl Rove," (http://www.counterpunch.org/madsen1101.html) Counterpunch, November 1, 2002.

2003

Ron Suskind, "Why Are These Men Laughing?"

(http://www.ronsuskind.com/newsite/articles/archives/000032.html) Esquire (posted at ronsuskind.com), January 2003: "Sources close to the former president say Rove was fired from the 1992 Bush presidential campaign after he planted a negative story with columnist Robert Novak about dissatisfaction with campaign fundraising chief and Bush loyalist Robert Mosbacher Jr. It was smoked out, and he was summarily ousted."

"Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential," (http://www.khilafah.com/home/category.php?DocumentID=7029&TagID=2) Los Angeles Times, May 8, 2003.

Francis X. Cline, "Karl Rove's Campaign Strategy: It's the Terror, Stupid," (http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/10/opinion/10SAT4.html?th), The New York Times, May 10, 2003.

Nicholas Lemann, "The Controller: Karl Rove is working to get George Bush reelected, but he has bigger plans," (http://bnfp.org/neighborhood/Lemann_Rove_NYM.htm) The New Yorker Magazine, May 12, 2003.

"Karl Rove. The Man with the Plan. Tax Cuts, Federal Privatization, The Assault on Labor Unions, Early Retirement, and Postal Reform - How They All Come Together," (http://www.postalworkersonline.com/rove.htm) PostalMag.com, May 28, 2003.

Tom Hamburger, "Oregon Water Saga Illuminates Rove's Methods With Agencies," (http://www.mindfully.org/Water/2003/Karl-Rove-Salmon-Killer30jul03.htm) Wall Street Journal, July 30, 2003.

"CIA scandal could divert Rove from re-election campaign," (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1521&e=3&u=/afp/AP, October 1, 2003, Re unauthorized disclosure of name of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame.

"Conyers Calls For Rove's Resignation," (http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/100803A.shtml) Truthout.org, October 7, 2003:

"I write to ask you to resign from the White House staff. Recent press reports have indicated that, while you may or may not have been the source of the Robert Novak column which revealed the status and name of a covert operative, the wife of Ambassador Joseph Wilson, you were involved in a subsequent effort to push this classified information to other reporters and give it even wider currency. This itself may be a federal crime, but regardless of that fact, your actions are morally indefensible."

Wayne Madsen, "Karl Rove, the king of dirt," (http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/120503_rove.html) From the Wilderness, December 5, 2003.

2004

"Who's Who in the White House," (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/administration/whbriefing/whoswho.html) updated February 16, 2004.

John Nichols, "Exploiting 9/11, Badly," (http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat?bid=1&pid=1300) The Nation, March 5, 2004.

Dick Meyer, "Have Rove & Bush Lost Their Mojo?"

(http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/03/08/opinion/meyer/main604592.shtml) CBS News, March 8, 2004.

Steve Perry, "Karl Rove's Moment. How 'Bush's Brain' hijacked Washington DC and politics-as-usual,"

(http://babelogue.citypages.com:8080/sperry/2004/03/21#a720) Babelogue, March 21, 2004.

James C. Moore, "Karl Rove’s Master Plan: A One-Party America," (http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/04/08/con04361.html) BuzzFlash Contribution, August 31, 2004.

Neal Gabler, "Karl Rove: America's Mullah," (http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/sunday/commentary/ Los Angeles Times, October 24, 2004.

Chris Suellentrop, "The Vanishing Nonvoter. Has Karl Rove brought too many new people to politics?" (http://www.slate.com/id/2108924/) Slate, October 30, 2004.

Tom Pauken, "The Rise and Fall of the Texas Republican Party: The Rove Machine,"

(http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/Chronicles/November2004/1104Pauken.html) Chronicles Magazine, November 2004.

2005

Nomination (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/02/20050208-13.html), White House News Release, February 8, 2005: Bush named "Karl Rove Assistant to the President, Deputy Chief of Staff and Senior Advisor."

Howard Fineman and Michael Isikoff, "King Karl," (http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6959814/site/newsweek/) Newsweek, February 21, 2005.

"It's no big deal, insists the White House. But Rove's new duties will help fix Bush's place in history."

"Rove Uses Campaign Playbook to Mastermind Social Security Fight (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=av31qz5pmM7Y&refer=us)," Bloomberg.com, March 2, 2005.

Patrick O'Connor, "Rove briefs lobbyists on Social Security plan (http://thehill.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/030105/rove.html)," The Hill, March 1, 2005.

Harvey Wasserman, "If Jesus returns, Karl Rove will kill him," (http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/7/2005/1096) The Free Press, March 22, 2005.

Bill Moyers, "Welcome to Doomsday," (http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17852), The New York Review of Books, March 28, 2005 (edition): "... Karl Rove wandered the White House whistling 'Onward Christian Soldiers' as he prepared for the 2004 elections."

"Karl Rove - The Architect," (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/architect/) PBS Frontline, April 12, 2005.

Alexandra Star, "Dick Wadhams. Karl Rove's heir apparent," (http://www.slate.com/id/2120558/) Slate, June 10, 2005. See Dick Wadhams.

Karl Rove, "Remarks of Karl Rove at the New York Conservative Party," (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/24/AR2005062400097.html), Washington Post, June 22, 2005. (This is a full transcript of his comments.)

Sam Dolnick, "Rove: Dems Didn't Get 9/11 Consequences," (http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=873646&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312) AP, June 22, 2005.

Patrick D. Healy, "Rove Criticizes Liberals on 9/11," (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/23/politics/23rove.html) New York Times, June 23, 2005.

Jim Abrams, "Dems say Rove should apologize or resign," (http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2005/06/23/ AP, June 23, 2005.

Jim Abrams, "White House supports Rove over comments," (http://www.adn.com/24hour/politics/story/2504753p-10862420c.html) AP, June 23, 2005.

Stephen Dinan and Ralph Z. Hallow, "Rove's mockery of 9/11 liberals riles Democrats," (http://washingtontimes.com/functions/print.php?StoryID=20050624-124200-5278r) Washington Times, June 24, 2005.

"Media outlets highlight Democrats' outrage over Rove comment; most neglect to mention outrage from 9-11 families," (http://mediamatters.org/items/200506240004) Media Matters for America, June 24, 2005.

"White House: Rove targeted liberal group, filmmaker," (http://www.political-news.org/breaking/12522/white-house-rove-targeted-liberal-group-filmmaker.html) Reuters, June 24, 2005.

Jamey Hecht, "The Rove Remarks," (http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/062405_rove_remarks.shtml) From the Wilderness, June 24, 2005. Sam Dolnick's June 22, 2005, AP article precedes Hecht's article.

Joe Conason, "Karl Rove is a liar. In attacking liberals' reaction to Sept. 11, Bush's senior advisor once again resorts to McCarthy-style tactics," (http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2005/06/24/karl_rove/) Salon, June 24, 2005: "The other night Rove lied about the liberal reaction to the Sept. 11 attacks and again exploited patriotism for narrow partisan advantage in a time of war. He seeks to divert public opinion from the failures of the Bush administration by suppressing dissent, stigmatizing 'liberals' and returning to the same old tactics that the Republican far right has used ever since the McCarthy era." Access requires subscription or site pass.

Dan Froomkin, "They Don't Apologize," (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/2005/04/11/LI2005041100879.html) Washington Post, June 24, 2005. Terry Turner, "Rove Rewrites History," (http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/06/24/100416.php) blogcritics.org, June 24, 2005.

David Corn, "Another 9/11 Insult from the GOP," (http://www.thenation.com/blogs/capitalgames?bid=3&pid=3852) The Nation, June 24, 2005.

Dan Balz, "Rove Taking a More Public Role: Bush Adviser Playing Messenger for Second-Term Agenda (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/25/AR2005062501279.html)", Washington Post, June 26, 2005.

"Karl Rove," (http://www.therandirhodesshow.com/randirhodes/messageboards/lofiversion/index.php/t56550.html)

The Randi Rhodes Show, June 26, 2005. *Randolph T. Holhut, "'Even Karl Rove's lies can't save President Bush now'," (http://www.smirkingchimp.com/article.php?sid=21741&mode=nested&order=0) The Smirking Chimp, June 30, 2005: "It's a sign that the Bush administration is now so tapped out, so intellectually bankrupt and so without scruples that it is reduced to attacking the patriotism of the 60 percent or so of Americans who now think George W. Bush is running this country straight into the ground."

"Liberally use Rove's rules against Rove," (http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/bookman/index.html) Atlanta Journal-Constitution, June 30, 2005: "Karl Rove, the president's top political adviser and deputy chief of staff, had himself a little fun a week ago. ...

'Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 in the attacks and prepared for war,' Rove said in a New York speech. 'Liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers.' ... That's a harsh indictment of a substantial portion of the American people. It's also patently untrue."

Helen Thomas, "Rove Crosses Line With Attack On Liberals. Bush Adviser Comes Close To Calling Democrats 'Appeasers',"

(http://www.thebostonchannel.com/helenthomas/4669536/detail.html) Hearst Newspapers, June 30, 2005.

Justin Raimondo, "Summer Scandals. Let the fireworks begin!" (http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=6533) antiwar.com, July 4, 2005.

Judd Legum et al., "Questions for Karl," (http://www.americanprogressaction.org/site/pp.aspx?c=klLWJcP7H&b=100480&printmode=1#4)

Progress Report/American Progress Action Fund, July 5, 2005. Retrieved from "http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Karl_Rove"

Bush's Brain

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