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Karl Rove and the Electoral Politics of War
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Polly Mann, W A M M
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“Listen, lady, politics is no Sunday school picnic,” the snarling man said to me as I sat down at a 2nd District DFL meeting in Mankato sometime in the early 1950s. I had just spoken about something the party had done that I considered wrong. I didn’t respond to the man, but my thought was then, as it is now, that the closer politics gets to that Sunday school picnic, the better it will be for all.
During the years that I was involved with partisan politics, that thought returned to me again and again. I think that people who participate in politics, generally, can be divided into two groups. Group one believes that politics is the game of getting your candidate elected doing whatever it takes (wink, wink)—an exciting game. Group two recognizes the existence of group one but works in politics despite the presence and power of group one. For them, politics is not a game but a serious involvement that they engage in out of concern for the state, the nation, the world, their children, and their grandchildren.
Elected officials usually have supporters from both camps. Sometimes they might not recognize or might deny the existence of the manipulators—the game players—on their staff. But sometimes these game players do something so egregious or illegal that it cannot be denied.
Today, according to the pundits, Karl Rove, the chief aide to George W. Bush, is such a game player. The most recent incident to place him in the spotlight is the “outing” of CIA analyst Valerie Plame, who is married to former Ambassador Joseph Wilson. Three reporters revealed her identity: Knut Royce and Timothy Phelps of Newsday and columnist Robert Novack of the New York Times. The person most often mentioned as the probable source for the leaks is Karl Rove. Whoever makes public the name of an intelligence agent is liable to prosecution under the Intelligence Identity Act of 1982, which carries an automatic, mandatory ten-years-to-life sentence.
The next question might be, “Why was Plame outed?” Most believe it had to do with her husband. On July 6, 2003, Wilson wrote in a New York Times article that he had been sent by the Administration to the nation of Niger to verify that Saddam Hussein had tried to buy uranium yellowcake, a form of lightly processed ore used in the manufacture of nuclear weapons. He found that Niger could not have transferred uranium to Iraq. If the government of Niger wanted to remove uranium, it would first have to gain approval from a consortium composed of French, Spanish, Japanese, German, and Nigerian interests, plus the Niger minister of mines. The U.S. ambassador to Niger, Barbra Owens-Kirkpatrick, agreed with Wilson’s findings and said she had previously debunked the possibility of the sale of uranium to Iraq in reports sent to Washington. It is conjectured that the outing of Plame was retaliation for the report made public by Wilson.
It would not be the first time that Rove had provided sensitive information to Robert Novack. The White House has denied that Rove was responsible. However, there is much to suggest that, indeed, he was. Just who is this man known by Texas and Washington insiders as “Bush’s brains”? As the president’s chief political advisor, Rove is involved in every Oval Office decision. His relationship with the president is said to be the most profound and complex of all Bush’s relationships with advisors. Some even consider Rove “co-president” of the United States.
Rove is credited with the failure of the 2002 reelection effort of Rep. Cynthia McKinney (Dem., GA). This brave legislator was the first nationally known politician to question what Bush may have known beforehand about the attacks of September 11, 2001. In an article in Counterpunch, Wayne Madsen, a Washington, DC-based journalist and columnist, says Rove’s “penchant for fascistic demagoguery and outright lying continues to this very day.”
According to James C. Moore, co-author of Bush’s Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential, “Rove is probably the most powerful unelected person in American history.” Moore contends that the justification for the invasion of Iraq was Rove’s idea. “He looked around and saw that the economy was anemic and people were complaining about the president’s inability to find Osama bin Laden. In another corner, the neo-conservatives in the Cabinet were itching to launch ships and planes to the Mideast and take control of Iraq. Rove converged the dynamics of the times. He convinced the president to connect Hussein to Bin Laden, even if the CIA could not. This misdirection worked. A Pew survey taken during the war showed 61 percent of Americans believe that Hussein and Bin Laden were confederates in the 9/11 attack.”
Many Americans have wondered why George W. Bush is treated so gently by the U.S. media, which was so desperate to uncover the scandals of Bill Clinton. According to journalist David Podvin in a June 29, 2003, article, Jack Welch, then chairman of General Electric, agreed to “run interference for the Bush campaign with the understanding that a new Republican Administration would eliminate regulations on communications conglomerates.” Michael Powell, head of the FCC, attempted to do just this, but public pressure has resulted in a cancellation of the necessary legislation and the whole matter is today on hold. Podvin continues: “Since taking office, Bush has continued to receive a reportorial free ride. He has been impervious to revelations about his insider trading at Harken Energy, his political corruption involving Enron and energy deregulation, his obstruction of an investigation into his failure to protect the nation from terrorist attack, and his lies about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Bush has been scandal-proofed; in the absence of investigative reporting, there can be no scandal.” And finally, “The pact between Rove and Welch has resulted in a massive redistribution of wealth and power.”
Karl Rove was born December 25, 1950, in Denver, Colorado, and grew up in the West. He arrived in Houston in 1977 to work for a political action committee of the senior George H.W. Bush. In 1980, the senior Bush hired Rove to run his presidential campaign. In 1981, when Bush became Reagan’s vice-president, Rove started his consulting business. Rove has been advising the junior George W. Bush since he was a candidate for governor of Texas in November 1993.
When Rove came to the White House, he was one of the biggest holders of Enron stock among the staffers, with between $100,00 and $250,000 worth of shares, which he was required to sell. The White House has acknowledged that Rove took part in meetings that helped shape the government’s energy policy while he still held Enron shares and stock in other energy companies.
Attorney General John Ashcroft reported that the Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation to determine the source of the Valerie Plame leak, but Democrats in the Congress continue to demand a special counsel in the Senate, contending that the Justice Department cannot investigate itself. This situation underlines the problem of a White House where winning the next election appears to be more important than consideration of the country’s best interests.
According to James Moore, Rove was “less concerned about the bombing of Iraqi civilians . . . than he was about what those acts would do to the results of the electoral college, or how they influence voters in swing states like Florida. There needs to be something sacred about our presidents’ decisions to send our children into combat. The Karl Roves of the world ought to not even be in the room, much less asked for advice.” Amen, I say. These decision-making meetings should look something more like a Sunday school picnic than a smoke-filled back room full of greedy power brokers.
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© 2003 Women Against Military Madness. All rights reserved.
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Complete November 2003 Index - click here
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