Rove Exposed: How Bush's Brain Fooled America

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.

Since I didn't read Bush's Brain, most of the material in this book was new to me, and fascinating. Ironically, the book made my impression of Rove somewhat more sympathetic than before: the "Revenge of the Nerd" theme resonated a bit, and I found myself thinking "Why can't the Democrats get more guys like this?". That this thought crossed my mind is a symptom of the sorry state that politics has reached in this country.