Believers Against Bush: About Bush

Bush may Talk to God, but He Listens to Karl Rove

George W. Bush has advisors, associates, and contributors who, in our opinion, should alarm Christ-following Christians. We seriously wonder if Evangelicals have examined the company that Bush keeps and asked if they help or hinder Bush from being a godly leader.

George W. Bush’s top advisor since he announced his run for Governor of Texas in November of 1999 has been a man named Karl Rove. Rove is Bush’s friend, and confident; Bush trusts his judgment. Rove is Bush’s “boy genius” and as such, Rove wields tremendous power.

“ I think it’s an enormous position of power, and it’s hard to overstate. I think he’s unique in the modern presidency,” says Lou Dubose, a Texan journalist and Rove biographer. Rove’s office is tight-lipped about the extent of his duties, but the few un-vetted memoirs to have escaped from this highly disciplined administration have all portrayed him as the single most powerful figure in it, with the (possible) exceptions of the president and vice-president.

“Karl is enormously powerful, maybe the single most powerful person in the modern, post-Hoover era ever to occupy a political adviser post near the Oval Office,” John DiIulio, a former presidential adviser, wrote in a notoriously frank email to a journalist from Esquire magazine, after resigning in 2001. “Little happens on any issue without Karl’s OK, and often he supplies such policy substance as the administration puts out.” (1)

What Would Machiavelli Do?

Critics of Rove refer to him as “amoral” and Machiavellian—as in “the ends justify the means.”

“He’s (Rove) enormously effective,” says Dallas lawyer and Bush critic Tom Pauken, noting that Rove’s political bible is Machiavelli’s The Prince. And it is Machiavelli—not the authors of the conservative and neocon canon—who has informed Rove's treatment of Pauken. (2)

For those unfamiliar with Machiavelli and The Prince, here is one quote from Chapter 18, “Concerning the Way in Which a Prince Should Keep Faith”:

Therefore it is unnecessary for a prince to have all the good qualities I have enumerated, but it is very necessary to appear to have them. And I shall dare to say this also, that to have them and always to observe them is injurious, and that to appear to have them is useful; to appear merciful, faithful, humane, religious, upright, and to be so, but with a mind so framed that should you require not to be so, you may be able and know how to change to the opposite...(3)

In other words, Machiavelli’s advice is to appear merciful, faithful, upright, etc. as long as it is expedient to do so. However, the prince should know how to be the exact opposite, if necessary! Machivelli’s political philosophy can be summed up as follows:

For Machiavelli, politics was about one and only one thing: getting and keeping power or authority. Everything else—religion, morality, etc.—that people associate with politics has nothing to do with this fundamental aspect of politics—unless being moral helps one get and keep power. The only skill that counts in getting and maintaining power is calculation; the successful politician knows what to do or what to say for every situation. (4)

For Karl Rove, getting and keeping power means winning; and Rove hardly ever loses.

Rove’s Machiavellian tactics have helped him achieve a well-deserved reputation as a master of dirty tricks. In fact, Rove’s tricks go back to 1970, when the nineteen-year-old stole campaign letterhead from Alan Dixon, a Democrat running for state treasurer in Illinois, and forged an invitation for “free beer, free food, girls and a good time for nothing” at Dixon’s campaign headquarters. (5)

Since those early days Rove has become much more effective, both in getting his candidates to win (despite Rove’s effort to wreak havoc, Dixon won in 1970), and in covering his tracks. The UK Guardian in a March 2004 article about Rove entitled “The Brains” reports an infamous incident from the 1986 Texas gubernatorial race reports:

The contest between Rove’s Republican client, Bill Clements, and the Democratic incumbent, Mark White, was neck and neck, when Rove announced he had found an electronic listening device in his office, and cried foul. The furor swung the election to Clements and to this day Texan Democrats are convinced Rove concocted the whole episode. (5)

Rove’s Trademark: the Smear Campaign™

Since Karl Rove began working for George W. Bush, Bush opponents Ann Richards, John McCain, and now John Kerry have been smeared in the signature Rove manner: other people do the dirty work, the candidate appears uninvolved, and Rove himself leaves no fingerprints.

Regarding Ann Richards, the UK Guardian wrote:

In its last days, the 1994 campaign also turned nasty. Texan voters began receiving calls from “pollsters” asking questions such as: “Would you be more or less likely to vote for Governor Richards if you knew her staff is dominated by lesbians?” In the business, it is called “push-polling” and (Richard’s campaign advisor George) Shipley has no doubt who was behind it.“Rove has used this kind of dirty tricks in every campaign he's ever run.” (6)

A similar “push-poll” was part of a smear campaign against John McCain in 2000. According to McCain’s campaign manager, Richard Davies:

It didn’t take much research to turn up a seemingly innocuous fact about the McCains: John and his wife, Cindy, have an adopted daughter named Bridget. Cindy found Bridget at Mother Theresa’s orphanage in Bangladesh, brought her to the United States for medical treatment, and the family ultimately adopted her. Bridget has dark skin.

Anonymous opponents used “push polling” to suggest that McCain’s Bangladeshi born daughter was his own, illegitimate black child. In push polling, a voter gets a call, ostensibly from a polling company, asking which candidate the voter supports. In this case, if the “pollster” determined that the person was a McCain supporter, he made statements designed to create doubt about the senator.

Thus, the “pollsters” asked McCain supporters if they would be more or less likely to vote for McCain if they knew he had fathered an illegitimate child who was black. In the conservative, race-conscious South, that’s not a minor charge. We had no idea who made the phone calls, who paid for them, or how many calls were made. Effective and anonymous: the perfect smear campaign. (7)

McCain subsequently lost the South Carolina primary to Bush—and his bid for the presidency.

The Rove inspired “smear machine” was set in motion again in 2002, this time directed against then Georgia Senator Max Cleland. The Associated Press, regarding an ad by Cleland’s 2002 opponent, Saxby Chamliss, said:

The ad’s primary focus is Cleland’s position on legislation creating a homeland security department Bush is seeking. Although Cleland supports one version of that bill, he says he won’t support the president's preference without an amendment guaranteeing labor rights for federal workers.

“To put my picture up there with Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden and insinuate I'm not fighting hard enough for national security, I just find that this is an incredible low in Georgia politics,” Cleland said. (8)

Now the Rove smear machine has focused on John Kerry. We have written elsewhere how the so-called “Swift Boat Vets for Truth” have not been able to substantiate a single allegation against Kerry’s service, and that all but one of them were not eyewitnesses to the events. It has been noted that prior to the formation of the Swift Boat Vets, the only connection that Swift Boat funder Bob R. Perry, and Swift Boat Vets leader John O’Neill had in common was Rove.

To our ears, Karl Rove does not sound like a man who would inspire godliness, yet he is George W. Bush’s advisor. Bush prays to God—his favorite philosopher is Jesus—but is advised by a disciple of Machiavelli. Evangelicals speak of Bush as “God’s man in the White House,” yet “God’s man’s” top advisor has multiple smear and slander campaigns associated with his (Rove’s) name.

Make no mistake about it, George W. Bush may pray every day, but he listens to Karl Rove.

(1) “The Brains” by Julian Borger, The Guardian, March 9, 2004

(2) “Bush’s Hit Man” by Lou Dubose, The Nation, February 2001

(3) The Prince, by Nicolò Machiavelli, Chapter 18 (this work is in the public domain)

(5) “ Niccolo Machiavelli, Statesman and Political Philosopher” by Robin Chew, Lucid Interactive May 1996.

(4) “Karl Rove,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia

(5) “The Brains,” Borger, 2004

(6) idbid.

(7) “The Anatomy of a Smear Campaign,” by Richard H. Davis, The Boston Globe, March 21, 2004

(8 ) “Republican Smear Ad Misrepresents Cleland” by Jeffrey McMurray, Associated Press, October 11, 2002

Bush may Talk to God, but He Listens to Karl Rove

What Would Machiavelli Do?

Rove’s Trademark: the Smear Campaign™

Further Reading: