Book Reviewed
by Renate Viveen Hood
Assistant Professor of Biblical Studies, LeTourneau University, Longview, TX
The Brain Behind the Oval Office
By Jena Heath, Assistant Metro Editor
Austin American Statesman, Austin, TX
Note: Jena Heath covered the 2000 Bush presidential campaign and, until May, 2002, the White House. This article is reprinted by permission from the February 21, 2003, Statesman.
Surely Wayne Slater and James Moore did not set out to write an indictment of the George W. Bush presidency. But that is the unexpected result of the second, and more substantial, of the recent books about Bush`s longtime political partner, Karl Rove.
"He has created a politics of pretense," the Austin-based reporters write of the senior adviser to the president as their 347-page "Bush`s Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential" draws to its scathing close.
"Neither Rove nor the Bush administration give the electorate credit for being sophisticated enough to call them to account. If they were concerned about being caught, Rove would reduce the president`s exposure to claims of hypocrisy and broken campaign pledges. Instead, Bush signs his education bill, the `Leave No Child Behind Act` with a smiling Ted Kennedy over his shoulder. This is the TV moment the electorate remembers, a president appearing to create bipartisan coalitions and endeavoring to `change the tone` in Washington while helping our children."
They also fault Democratic leaders for failing to articulate arguments on any number of fronts: "No politician emerged to discuss what the potential war against Iraq was really about. Nor was anyone speaking of the careful dismantling of environmental regulations or proposed reductions in education funding while military spending spiked into double digit percentage increases . . . The president was confident. The public believed. And the Democrats cowered."
The authors attribute that trifecta to Rove, the one-time nerd they cast as a political Dr. Evil. Dubbing him "co-president of the United States," they argue that he and Bush function as parts of a whole-brilliant, ruthless strategist guiding ambitious, connected son. Their book fills in the outline drawn by Lou Dubose, Jan Reid and Carl Cannon in "Boy Genius: Karl Rove, the Brains Behind the Remarkable Political Truimph of George W. Bush" which came out in January and drew a similar portrait of Rove as the mastermind who engineered the defeat of Texas` last class of Democratic office holders.
Slater, Austin bureau chief for the Dallas Morning News, and Moore, a Democratic campaign worker and former Austin bureau chief for KHOU-TV, dig up detailed, albeit circumstantial, evidence of Rove`s machinations. They tell how Rove allegedly bugged his own office, then cried scandal to distract attention from an upcoming debate between his client, former Republican Gov. Bill Clements, and Democratic incumbent Mark White in the campaign`s final days. Clements won the election.
In another instance, the authors use exhibits not entered at an eventual trial as well as state and federal records, to make a convincing case that Rove worked with an Austin FBI agent named Greg Rampton to bring down Jim Hightower, former Texas Agriculture Commissioner and a rising star on the national Democratic stage. The bureau`s investigation ruined Hightower politically and sent two of his lieutenants to prison.
The authors can`t prove such suspicions any more than their contention that Rove almost single-handedly limits the information Bush gets. And that is a problem with both Rove books. They do what the authors accuse Rove of doing, alleging guilt by innuendo and association, while they risk minimizing the key role of players such as Vice President Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz, deputy secretary of defense and an ardent and influential hawk.
Rove took Slater and Moore`s effort at examining his tactics seriously enough to sit down for a 4 ½ hour interview and for follow-up telephone conversations. He obtained an early manuscript and asked for changes. The authors corrected factual errors, but Slater said they made no major revisions and did not alter the book`s central assertion, one he said Rove objected to strongly, that Rove holds enormous sway with the president.
That assertion-and the uncomfortable analysis the authors offer-should force questions about having a win-at-all-costs political operative shaping White House policy as our nation moves toward war over the world`s protests.
