Bush’s Brain
Authors: James Moore and Wayne Slater
Book Review by Tamara K
This riveting account of the political
strategies of Karl Rove, political consultant to George W. Bush, details
the dirty tricks that destroyed careers and
reputations along their path to the White
house. James Moore and Wayne Slater, Texas journalists who
have followed this path for almost twenty
years, piece together news articles, first
hand accounts, and an interview with Rove himself to paint a compelling
(if somewhat repetitive) portrait of what
happens when raw ambition and intellect
meet opportunity. Bush’s Brain tells the story of a political consultant
whose brilliance in the art of
manipulation and ‘take-no-prisoners’ strategy
motivated and guided Bush to a governorship and a presidency. The
authors make their case that Rove
still shapes presidential policy and is
the de facto president.
The book begins with the premise that George
W. Bush would have no political aspirations except for his father’s defeat
by Clinton and thus a need to
redeem the Bush family name. The
authors portray him as intellectually mediocre and disinterested in national
politics. The evidence presented shows
that Karl Rove provided the vision and
the political substance lacking in the “improbable president.” Bush
himself calls Rove “the man with the plan,”
and makes no secret of his admiration of
Rove’s political skills. As the authors chronicle the rise of Rove,
they detail the actions of a man without
scruples- a political operative who
does whatever it takes to win. If Bush needs it, Rove does it-
while Bush stays above the fray.
Rove came from a modest background and
never knew his biological father. His mother divorced when he was
twenty, and soon after committed
suicide. Without roots or a place
to belong, he immersed himself into the world of politics, where he found
a home that he vigorously and viciously
defends. He never graduated from
college, and still carries insecurities with him regarding his lack of
a formal education. Rove started his political career
with Lee Atwater which provided him with
access to the most influential of republicans, and he hit the ground running.
He first worked with the elder
President Bush, and recalls his first
impression of a “cool” young George W. Bush.
Bush’s Brain provides an in-depth account
of the most questionable tactics employed by Rove as a political consultant,
first detailing his work for
the ex-governor of Texas, Bill Clements,
in his campaign to regain his position from the incumbent Mark White.
This was an early indication of to
what lengths Rove would go to win.
The authors lay out convincing evidence that Rove engineered a political
stunt by having his own office bugged,
then swept for bugs, and then leaking to
the media that the opponent had done it. Later, while consulting
for a republican candidate for Texas
Agriculture Commissioner, Rove used connections
with the FBI and U.S. Attorney in Austin to launch investigations into
credit card billings - and
of course the investigations were leaked
for maximum effect, with little proof. However, once the ball got
rolling, revelations about the Commissioner’s
use of employees to solicit political contributions
while doing regulatory work for the department did ruin political careers-
and landed a few minor
players in prison.
By the time Rove became the consultant
for George W. Bush in the race for Texas Governor, he had plenty of experience
in dirty tricks and media
manipulation. The Bush team used
Ann Richards’ appointment of several women (one who was openly lesbian)
to government positions, implying that
Richards was homosexual. One prominent
appointee was exposed as a liar when it was leaked to the press that she
never graduated from college.
By all accounts, Richards should have won
but did not take the Bush campaign seriously enough - and the momentum
swing was one her campaign
never recovered from. She tasted
the revenge of a Bush family smitten with anger after her now famous speech:
“Poor George, he can’t help it
… he was born with a silver
foot in his mouth!”
The dirty political tricks were not reserved
for Democrats only. In the presidential primary, Rove used targeted
phone “push-polls” and an email from a
Bob Jones University professor to start
rumors in South Carolina that John McCain had fathered an illegitimate
black child and that his wife was a drug
abuser. Such obvious race-baiting
was only enhanced by Bush adopting a stronger southern accent. As
McCain bristled and steamed, questions arose
about his ‘competency,’ and his Vietnam
POW experience was used to imply mental instability. The enmity between
McCain and Bush runs strong still,
so personal were the attacks.
Some personal anecdotes allow us to see
Rove’s need to be respected and his insecurity regarding his social status,
which fuels his thirst for power.
Rove’s property dispute with a neighbor
regarding covenants and restrictions stayed with him for years. Later,
when the neighbor expressed surprise
that Rove was still angry, Rove told him,
“You said that you moved out here to get away from people like me.”
That he took such a comment so
personally and held the grudge for so long
is shocking, and illuminates Rove’s deep seeded insecurity regarding his
social status.
Rove is credited as the genius behind Bush’s
presidential win because he had the foresight to place importance on West
Virginia. Generally overlooked
as a small state with few electoral votes,
West Virginia provided the requisite votes necessary for Bush to win the
Presidency. During the Miami-Dade
County recount, he is also credited with
staging the highly publicized ‘protest’ that stopped the counting.
Little mention is made in Bush’s Brain of the
fact that Bush the father sent in James
Baker to help with the situation, that brother Jeb Bush’s Secretary of
State stopped recounts, and that ultimately
Bush family connections played an important
part in the election.
When quoted, Rove sounds like a quintessential
braggart who takes credit for achievements not his own. In one ludicrous
statement this is made
obvious: “Later, we added tort reform.
I sort of talked him [Bush] into that one.” Tort reform has been
the political agenda of corporate America for
twenty years, and Rove could hardly have
been the first person to influence Bush’s decision to pursue it as a political
goal.
While providing valuable insight into Rove’s
character and history, Bush’s Brain does little to reveal the inner workings
of the president himself. There
is little doubt that Karl Rove believes
that he is Bush’s brain, but is this the self-serving, grandiose perception
of a bloodthirsty political operative who
lives out his political ambitions vicariously
through Bush? The authors do note the following:
“There actually were two campaigns against [Ann]
Richards, one in which Bush floated above the fray and another in which
Rove targeted the
Democrat’s politics and gender. It
was an arrangement that allowed Bush plausible deniability, no matter what.
And it was a model of future
Bush races: Bush traveling the high
road, Rove pursuing the low.”
The authors clearly believe that Rove is
the puppet master and Bush the puppet. However, the reader is left
with the uneasy feeling that the roles may
very well be reversed. Perhaps George
W. Bush is smart enough to be affable and make friends while turning a
blind eye to the egomaniac Rove’s
underhanded tactics. It seems naïve,
if not preposterous, to believe that Rove, the college dropout without
familial ties, is calling the shots when Bush
the elder carries such powerful political
and financial clout- and yet this is the tale to which so many of Bush’s
adversaries and acquaintances bare
witness. True or not, it is a perception
that serves to insulate the President from appearing to advance his father’s
agenda. Rove has inspired fear when
he has not earned respect, and perception
has become reality- the stuff myths are made of.
In the end, whether Karl Rove is the brilliant
puppeteer or Bush is a skillful manipulator who is using an eager wannabe
to do his dirty work, there is little
doubt that things are not as they seem-
and that the face of American politics could forever change into little
more than a tabloid game of guerilla tactics,
where style outweighs substance and fear
rules the universe.