Posted on 08/15/2007 4:27:22 PM PDT by silent_jonny
President Bush’s advisor Karl Rove was interviewed today by Rush Limbaugh. (Transcript with audio). This was Rove’s first interview since he announced his resignation earlier this week.
RUSH: You've been the brunt of all kinds of assaults and attacks, personally and otherwise, along with the president. How do you guys deal with it?
ROVE: Rush, you ignore it. I mean, if you have to wake up in the morning to be validated by the editorial page of the New York Times, you got a pretty sorry existence.
Classic photo: President George W. Bush is silhouetted against an early morning sky after a run at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, Friday, Aug. 9, 2002.
President Bush continues his vacation at his home in Crawford, TX.
Deputy Press Secretary Dana Perino: The President today had his normal briefings. He also did some tree cutting this morning, and then either -- I think is right now [noon EST] on a bike ride.
… I want to start off by saying that we join with the Iraqis who are grieving after yesterday's suicide bombings. We condemn the barbaric attacks on the innocent Iraqi citizens who lost their lives, and for the hundreds who were wounded. It's difficult for those of us who live in peace and freedom to understand what possesses people to take a suicide truck bomb and blow it up in the middle of a highly populated area. This is an enemy that has no heart, they have no conscience, and what they are trying to do is break our will and the will of the Iraqi people.
But it has the opposite effect. And we are determined, more than ever, to stand with the Iraqis and support them as they work to protect their young democracy from being attacked by a determined enemy. (Transcript)
Enjoy your visit to Sanity Island 
Hi
Hi
Hi!
Howdy, Kas :)
RUSH: I would like to introduce you all to Karl Rove. Karl, welcome to the EIB Network. I cannot tell you how great it is finally to have you here with us.ROVE: Well, thanks, Rush. I'm honored you'd ask me and delighted to be with you.
RUSH: You haven't probably heard about this, although it won't surprise you, but I've gotta tell you something. It's a hilarious story. The editor of the Seattle Times was conducting a staff meeting when they learned of your resignation announcement, and everybody stood up and started cheering, and --
ROVE: Ha-ha-ha-ha! Was my wife there?
RUSH: (Laughing.)
ROVE: Was my wife in that crowd?
RUSH: Tell people about your perception. What do you want them to know about your job and how you did it?ROVE: Well, look first of all, you need to put my job in perspective. I'm an aide to the president of the United States. There are a lot of other aides to the president of the United States. So the first and foremost thing to understand is that I'm a member of a team.
In fact, you know, our day at the White House starts early, many times at 6:30 or six o'clock with meetings or breakfasts, but every day we have a senior staff meeting that starts at 7:30, and for the first four years of the administration, I sat around that table -- there are about 19, 20 people in the room who are the senior aides to the president, and for the first four years -- I started my day sitting between Margaret Spellings on one hand and Condi Rice on the other.
I mean, I look around the table today and I see the people that I've been honored to serve with as colleagues and aides to the president, and they are a remarkable group of Americans, many of whom have made enormous professional and personal and financial sacrifices to serve their country and this president. I've been honored to be one of them.
You know, I've had a little bit of a unique relationship with the president that some of them have not had, but every one of them -- the president has done a magnificent job of making every one of them -- understand his aspirations and his vision, and as a result, they're a wonderful team. We can disagree mightily about issues big and small. We can argue passionately our views on an issue. We can find consensus on a lot of them. When we can't, we take the issue to the president, he decides, and everybody at the end of the day salutes smartly and says, "You know, that was probably the right decision even if I was on the other side of it," and it's really a remarkable place to work.
RUSH: What would you like people to know about the president that they don't know?ROVE: Well, you know, the president is a... You know, I've known him 34 years, and I thought a long time ago I would cease to be amazed by the guy because I've had such high regard for him for so long, and particularly after he became governor of Texas, I realized I was capable of being surprised a lot more, and then when he became president. Look, the thing the American people need to know about him is he is just as passionate today about doing his job of protecting America and of growing the economy and being focused on big reforms that will make America better and safer and stronger in the years ahead, as he was in the day that he came in, and he walks into that office and lights up that building with -- you know, it sounds corny, but it's inspiring to work around him.
He's got a wonderful spirit.
He's got a great sense of humor.
He treats people with the greatest respect and dignity, and that goes from the guy swabbing out the floors on the first floor of the White House to, you know, some foreign head of state.
He treats everybody with respect and dignity, and he sets such a wonderful tone and serves as a wonderful model for people who work around him. I think one of the reasons why this White House staff consists of so many wonderful people is because they're around him and realize what a great experience it is to be around him.
RUSH: Does it frustrate you...? I know you said earlier just ignore the criticism. Does it frustrate you with all the attacks on him as brain dead or a frat boy, that you're the brain and this sort of thing, or do you shelve that and just go about your day?ROVE: Well, I shelve that, but I have to admit I'm amused by it because, you know, this is one of the best-read people I've ever met. This is a Harvard MBA. This is a Yale undergraduate whose major was history and whose passion is history. Many times the people I see criticizing him are, you know, sort of elite, effete snobs who can't hold a candle to this guy. What they don't like about him is that he is common sense, that he is Middle America.
RUSH: He outsmarts 'em.
ROVE: Yeah, and look, in a way, they "misunderestimate" him, and he likes that.
RUSH: (Laughs.)
ROVE: In fact, I think to some degree he cultivates that because it doesn't matter to him if somebody on the Upper East Side is putting their nose in the air about him. You know, he is who he is, and he's comfortable in his own skin, and he's not going to change just to win popularity with the elites.
How was your day?
Sorry about that !My husband says I,m the Queen the of the Double Click! I am working on it ! :) :)
RUSH: You said that he's a voracious reader. Tell people. You and he have a reading contest.ROVE: We do. We do. It happened by accident. We generally gossip on Sundays, and the Sunday before New Year's of last year, 2006, we were gossiping and I could hear Laura in the background and the president said to me, "Do you have any good New Year's resolutions? I gotta figure out a good New Year's resolution," ... I said, "Well, yeah, my object in 2006 is to read a book a week. My object is to do 52 books in a year," and he said, "Great," sort of dismissed it and went on.
Well, about the 2nd or 3rd of January we're in the Oval Office waiting for the vice president and a couple of others to straggle into a meeting and he looked at me, and said, "I'm on my second. Where are you?" So we went off to the races on a book contest and we kept track of books, and I leaped to an early lead, and he began a refrain which he's used a lot which is that he was in second place because he was the leader of the Free World and had a real job to do, which sort --
RUSH: (Laughs.)
ROVE: I mean, look, this is competitive, but I mean, come on, please. But no, we've had a great contest. It's been a great experience the last year and a half. We've been trading book suggestions back and forth.
RUSH: How many books have you guys read?
ROVE: I beat him last year, 110 to 94, and I'm ahead this year. I won't give you the total because it would crush you, and again he keeps saying, "Look, I'm the leader of the Free World, but, you know, I won the first year." In fact, it was almost... It was very funny.
RUSH: Wait. He's not reading little pamphlets. (Laughing.)
ROVE: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no! In fact, we both agreed upon a Mutually Assured Destruction. When we got too competitive last year, we both started reading John D. MacDonald mysteries, which are really delicious. He's a wonderful writer, a Floridian, who writes a wonderful set of mysteries, Travis McGee mysteries, and we both decided that we loved them. We were reading them quickly, enjoying them a lot, and then we realized this was being far too competitive. So we limited the number of John D. MacDonald mysteries we were both reading, so we could get back to the serious stuff.
Thank you , How are you today?
Hi SJ - wow - you won the lottery today. No new photos!
Thank you for the Dose today. Hope all is well with you :)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.