Is Rove The Bush Camp’s Achilles Heel?

By James Donahue

July 14. 2005

It is no secret in political circles that the Bush Administration is in place because of the dirty tricks originating from the mind of the nation’s unelected leader Karl Rove.

Rove has been the brilliant and often malicious strategist that has helped catapult George W. Bush into office as Governor of Texas, and then to the high office of President for two consecutive terms.

The 54-year-old Rove served as Mr. Bush’s senior advisor and chief political strategist until February, when Bush advanced him to the new post of deputy chief of staff in charge of policy.

In other words, Bush appears to have placed Rove in charge of running the country, something we suspect he was doing all along but nobody wanted to admit it.

There is nothing wrong when a president surrounds himself with good sound political advisors. In fact, the office of President of the United States is such an overwhelming job it seems that one man would be incapable of doing it successfully without this kind of support staff.

But there is something strange about the relationship Mr. Bush has had with Karl Rove.

Rove’s reputation as a dirty trickster has gained him some degree of national fame. In fact a new word, “Rovian,” has been added to the language. It is somewhat of a synonym for Machiavellian, which means having narrow, self-interested views pursued by a special interest group.

The documentary Bush’s Brain, depicts Rove as the real brains behind the president. The film describes Rove as the most powerful political consultant in the nation’s history. Some have suggested that Rove is the nation’s secret co-president.

And all of this is why the controversy now surrounding Rove regarding the leak of Valerie Plame’s name as a CIA operative, and that it was exposed by political columnist Robert Novak, has become a real dilemma for Mr. Bush. The CIA is such a top secret organization that it is a federal crime to reveal the identity of any of the agency’s operatives.

At the start of the scandal, a typical unthinking Bush brashly announced that he would support a full investigation and the offender would no longer be on his staff. Now, as more and more evidence is uncovered pointing fingers right at Rove as the source of this leak, Bush has suddenly become very quiet.

Is Bush now spending his days on his knees in Rove’s office, asking his brain to find a solution to this terrible dilemma.

If he fires Rove, which he is almost obligated to do under the circumstances, some of the political pundits are gleefully suggesting that Bush cannot survive.

Fox News, an extreme right-wing news outlet that never fails to voice the Republican side of issues, noted that the Democrats are incorrect when they spread the myth that Rove is the puppeteer with Bush as the “dum-dum.”

The story quotes Carl Cannon, National Journal’s Washington correspondent and co-author of a biographical book about Rove, as saying that people in the White House understand that Rove is not the man in charge. “Bush is the unquestioned leader of that place,” Cannon said.

In a way, that statement makes sense.

It seems hard to believe that a man as brilliant as Rove appears to be would have used false information to lead us into a dead-end war in Iraq, or that he would dismiss the Kyoto Treaty dealing with such a critical issue as greenhouse gasses without a better explanation than simply saying the evidence does not support global warming.

In fact, when you look at some of the people Bush has appointed to his staff, it seems as if he has a few good minds on his cabinet.

Could it be that Bush is such a fool he believes he can run the country without listening to the advice of the people around him?

Perhaps the demise of Rove will make no difference whatsoever.