So, Why is this man laughing?
Karl Rove just may hold the key to George Bush's re-election bid
A visitor made the mistake of asking Karl Rove to explain the "raison d'être" of George W. Bush's presidency not long ago. "RAY-zon DEH-trah!" Bush's political guru shouted in mock horror at his guest's use of what he considered a highfalutin French phrase. Then Rove began singing a French Canadian folk song about a cook plucking feathers from a lark in preparation for dinner. "Alouette," he boomed happily, "gentille Alouette. Alouette, je te plumerai." Rove didn't stop until his guest broke into laughter at his goofy didacticism.
Believe it or not, Karl Rove, George W. Bush's legendary political architect and White House counselor, has a lighter side. The man behind the curtain in the president's campaign is a lot more complex than his caricature as a clench-jawed zealot would suggest, and it's increasingly clear that Rove will need all his myriad skills to score a victory in what is likely to be one of the closest and nastiest elections in recent history. In some ways, he defies stereotyping. Rove never graduated from college but is one of the few intellectuals in Bush's inner circle. He prides himself on being a big thinker but has an encyclopedic knowledge of political details, down to the demographics of obscure Ohio precincts. His heroes include Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt, two of the brainiest of presidents, but he is devoted to re-electing one of the least cerebral.
Most of all, the 53-year-old Rove takes the long view, and it's a decidedly nuanced one. "There are lots of earlier periods where a president has been called upon for extraordinary leadership in a time of actual threat," he told U.S. News, "but we're in a different kind of war that was instigated not by a nation-state but by transnational terrorists. And it's a different kind of war that requires a different kind of presidential leadership. [Americans] want to know it's steady. They want to know that it's committed. They want to know that it's got a vision, with clarity, and they want to know it's going to operate out of conviction. And they want to know the president is not going to get up in the morning and change his beliefs because of what he thinks is fad or fashion."
As for the war itself, Rove said, "People are constantly monitoring it, and they want to know that we are there for good reason, that we understand the stakes, and that we're committed to winning." Not exactly a bumper-sticker slogan, but Rove appreciates complexity, unlike his boss, who sees things in black and white. That trait, of course, is one reason Bush prizes him so highly--he adds a perspective Bush lacks.
Despite vast media interest in his activities, the owlish, bespectacled Texan has been keeping his head down. One reason is that the president and, more pointedly, Bush's wife and his mother thought Rove was getting too much attention--with the media depicting him as what a biographer called "Bush's brain." So Rove virtually shut down media appearances, though last week he did feel compelled to appear on Fox News and deny he was linked to ads by swift boat veterans challenging John Kerry's military record.
advertisement
