'Mark of Rove': Attack, leave no trail

As Texas' top political operative, Karl Rove honed an ability to damage an opponent without clear evidence that he was responsible.

The pattern exasperated Democrats but always served Mr. Rove well – until, perhaps, the case of Valerie Plame.

Despite early White House denials of his involvement, Mr. Rove has come under attack for his role in the unmasking of a covert CIA operative – an act that appeared aimed at punishing a Bush administration critic, Ms. Plame's husband.

It's not the first time that President Bush's most-trusted political adviser has been accused of political hardball or dirty tricks. But usually, there are no fingerprints.

"I don't think anybody who has ever been on the other side of a campaign from Karl Rove could ever be surprised by the allegations, whether well-founded or not," said Austin political consultant Chuck McDonald. "Karl is relentless in his pursuit of whatever his agenda is."

Political operatives in Texas have long seen a pattern they call "the Mark of Rove." Level an opponent, leave no evidence.

A decade ago, Mr. McDonald was advising Democrat Lena Guerrero, a rising political star, when Mr. Rove leaked word to a reporter that Ms. Guerrero, whose resume claimed she was a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Texas, didn't even have a degree.

The leak, and subsequent firestorm of publicity, damaged Ms. Guerrero, a railroad commissioner, and a Rove client defeated her.

In the 1986 governor's race in which he represented Republican Bill Clements, Mr. Rove announced he had found an electronic listening device in his office.

The controversy, coming on the eve of a key debate, helped Mr. Clements unseat incumbent Mark White.

Many Texas Democrats believe the episode was a political dirty trick. Mr. Rove denied he concocted the story.

In 1990, Mr. Rove recruited a little-known West Texas legislator named Rick Perry to challenge Agriculture Commissioner Jim Hightower. Stories leaked to newspapers questioned ethical practices within Mr. Hightower's agency, prompting an FBI investigation.

Two Agriculture Department officials went to prison, and Mr. Hightower, who was not charged with wrongdoing, lost the election.

Four years later, when Mr. Rove directed Mr. Bush's first run for governor, a whisper campaign in East Texas targeted incumbent Ann Richards' appointment of gays in her administration. Mr. Rove said he was not involved, but analysts said the incident damaged Ms. Richards' re-election chances.

And in the 2000 presidential race, Mr. Bush faced a serious challenge in the Republican primary from Sen. John McCain. Bush allies questioned whether years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam had left Mr. McCain temperamentally ill-suited for the presidency.

Mr. Rove said he played no role in the attack on Mr. McCain. He also denied involvement in last year's successful attack by an independent group, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, on Democrat John Kerry's service in Vietnam.

Much of the early money bankrolling the Swift Boat Veterans, though, came from a Houston homebuilder whom Mr. Rove recruited two decades ago to help bankroll the emerging Texas GOP.

The Kerry campaign was quick to see a pattern, even as Rove and Team Bush denied there was one.

"This town is built on myths," Mr. Rove told Fox News. "And I've become a convenient myth."

Perhaps the closest parallel to the current controversy over the outing of the CIA official occurred more than a decade ago.

In that political dustup, a newspaper columnist wrote a damaging piece in 1992 about Rove political rivals within the Texas Republican Party. Although Mr. Rove denied that he was the leaker, Republican leaders believed he was responsible and canceled his direct-mail contract with the Texas GOP.

Hey guys, Im a young republican, and maybe its just that I'm young and confused, or maybe its because I can't get a straight fix on this story.

I'm neither young, nor a Republican. I'm just a member of the vast right wing conspiracy. :o)

But my question is, wtf happened? Was there a leak?

There are always leaks. The MSM complains that the Bush WH is the most secretive administration of any President, ever, cuz it doesn't leak enough.

What did Rove do? What is the straight story?

So far, all that is known is that he talked to Cooper. The MSM was on the hunt for Cheney, because of a story Wilson was selling. Wilson claimed that Cheney's office sent him to Africa to check the story on Iraq shopping for yellowcake there. Rove told Cooper than Cheney & his office had nothing to do with it, that the order to send Wilson came from Wilson's wife. Rove got caught telling a reporter the truth.

All I hear is that there was a leak of a CIA agents wife's name that was undercover.

The wife was the agent. How undercover she was... That would be the question. This story goes back to Wilson, his claim about the yellowcake & the 16 words that made it into the State of the Union address. Wilson's wife is CIA & the story goes that she was "outted" in retaliation for "standing up" against the WH claims of Iraq shopping for Uranium in Africa.

Why are the Dem's making a big deal of this?

They think they're going to get political capital. If they can drag down "Bush's brain", all the better.

I feel as if them making a big deal out of it would be putting the identity of the agent more in jeapordy than Carl Rove saying the ladies name.

Rove didn't say her name. Her name was known. He told the reporter, Wilson's wife.

Im just confused. So did Carl Rove say, "Oh, so and so is an undercover CIA agent"

Rove may not have known that she was supposed to be undercover. By the time this story broke, she was more management than undercover.

WHY CANT THE MEDIA GIVE ME A STRAIGHT STORY ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED?

The media doesn't want to tell the straight story, cuz it's not very sexy & won't sell many papers. They want to tell you something big & juicy. Republican blood in the water always results in a feeding frenzy.

This partisan hack has been trying to make a career out of calling Rove Satan:

Step inside Bush's Brain with this enlightening book by James C. Moore and Wayne Slater.

Many Washington insiders believe that the strength of the Bush machine lies not in its leader but in Karl Rove, the man who picked Bush to run for Governor of Texas, tutored him on the workings of government, and ran brilliant yet brutal campaigns that would eventually sweep Bush into the Presidency.

In Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential, readers will enter the powerful world of White House Senior Advisor Karl Rove and learn how this man created George W. Bush and continues to keep him on top. Political journalists James Moore and Wayne Slater offer a rare glimpse into the man who has become the single most important advisor to George W. Bush — and the person who many think is calling the shots at the White House. They also discuss how Rove's strategic decisions seem to be determining U.S. policy for the Bush administration, including the controversial tactic of running on a war with Iraq.

This intriguing book also features previously unreported information on the Bush campaign — from the primaries and the conventions to the fall general election and the complex relationship Rove and Bush currently share. Karl Rove is both feared and admired by Republicans and Democrats alike. His take no prisoners approach to politics has received mixed reviews and left everyone wondering — who's really running this country? In Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential readers will learn who the real Karl Rove is and just how much power he really has.

http://www.bushsbrain.net/about-bushs-brain-book.html

I have a LOT of experience with Wayne Slater, the author of this smear piece. If Wayne had listened to me, the whole Dan Rather things would never have happened.

Here's the full text of my blog article discussing this piece of "journalism."

And, yes, I would like Freepers to visit my new blog.

-Michael McCullough (DallasMike)

The Dallas Morning News has once again resorted to publishing partisan opinion pieces under the guise of journalism with the story "'Mark of Rove': Attack, leave no trail."

I'll show not only that the article is based on conjecture, but that the writer, Wayne Slater, is co-author of a smear book and movie on Karl Rove and played a big role in pushing to prominence the man behind the phony Dan Rather memos, the loony former Texas Army National Guard Lt. Col. Bill Burkett.

Take this paragraph for starters:

It's not the first time that President Bush's most-trusted political adviser has been accused of political hardball or dirty tricks. But usually, there are no fingerprints.

"No fingerprints" -- that sums up the evidence for this opinion column masquerading as a news article. The author, Wayne Slater, serves up plenty of evidence to indicate that there's really no evidence of wrongdoing by Karl Rove no matter how much some would like there to be.

As Texas' top political operative, Karl Rove honed an ability to damage an opponent without clear evidence that he was responsible.
...
"I don't think anybody who has ever been on the other side of a campaign from Karl Rove could ever be surprised by the allegations, whether well-founded or not," said Austin political consultant Chuck McDonald.
...
Political operatives in Texas have long seen a pattern they call "the Mark of Rove." Level an opponent, leave no evidence.

And here's an interesting case: Rove once leaked the truth to a reporter that a candidate running for a seat on the powerful Texas Railroad Commission had heavily doctored her resume:

A decade ago, Mr. McDonald was advising Democrat Lena Guerrero, a rising political star, when Mr. Rove leaked word to a reporter that Ms. Guerrero, whose resume claimed she was a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Texas, didn't even have a degree.

There we have it: a Democrat was caught red-handed doing something very wrong yet Wayne Slater twists things to make Karl Rove look like the bad guy. That's not the only time, though:

In 1990, Mr. Rove recruited a little-known West Texas legislator named Rick Perry to challenge Agriculture Commissioner Jim Hightower. Stories leaked to newspapers questioned ethical practices within Mr. Hightower's agency, prompting an FBI investigation.

Two Agriculture Department officials went to prison, and Mr. Hightower, who was not charged with wrongdoing, lost the election.

Once again, Democrats are caught in wrongdoing and are even convicted of crimes and sent to jail but Karl Rove is the bad guy because he was the one who exposed them.

As a Wall Street Journal editorial put it today -- Karl Rove is a whistleblower. He's the good guy.

So just who is Dallas Morning News reporter Wayne Slater? Is he a paradigm of journalistic excellence who feeds us just the facts?

No, he isn't. Wayne Slater is the co-author of "Bush's Brain," a Michael Moore-type expose on how Rove is the evil genius behind the simpleton George W. Bush's rise to power. It was also made into a Fahrenheit 9/11-style movie. If you decide to read the book or see the movie, you'll find tons and tons of evidence scrupulously detailed by the authors. Unfortunately, virtually all of it is circumstantial. It's a book with an agenda, similar to some of the more bizarre Clinton-is-Antichrist publications that came out during the 1990s. The only difference is that it's respectable to make any claim at all about Bush, no matter how far-fetched they are. Here's what a Amazon.com reviewer had to say about the book:

I gave this book only two stars because it roams around aimlessly in the beginning and stinks of partisanship. It got those stars for the section that is closest to actual non-fictional reporting. Be careful though, even during this section the snide comments appear.

Be mindful as you read this that all of the Democrats listed by the authors are "rising stars" and "brilliant" and beautiful people as to their Republican counterparts whom happen to have "horn rimmed glasses" and "portly" and out of touch with the people of Texas. The authors never miss an opportunity to bash the President as well. Some far-fetched stories appear against this man too!

Further, Free Republic afficionados may remember my campaign against Wayne Slater because of his role in almost singlehandedly pushing Bill Burkett to prominence. Burkett was the guy who provided Dan Rather with the infamous forged memos. I showed anybody who would -- or wouldn't -- listen at the Dallas Morning News the lack of credibility of Burkett beginning on February 13th, 2004. It fell on deaf ears though because the Dallas Morning News was engaged in agenda journalism.

As a matter of fact, Wayne Slater's story shows that the Dallas Morning News is still engaged in partisan, agenda-driven journalism. They just never learn.

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