Why Are These Men Laughing? (The Esquire article in full)

Esquire ^ | January 2003 | Ron Susskind

[Paladin2b]

Maybe it’s because the midterm elections went so very well. Maybe it’s because at the White House, politics is the best policy. Maybe it’s because it’s the reign of Karl Rove. An inside look at how the most powerful presidential adviser in a century does what does so well.

On a cool Saturday a few days before Christmas last year, Karl Rove showed up in a festive mood at David Dreyer’s house in suburban Washington, D. C., to trim the tree and have a cup of eggnog. Dreyer is a liberal Democrat, formerly the deputy communications director in the Clinton White House and also a senior adviser to Treasury secretary Robert Rubin. He now runs a small public-relations firm. His daughter and Karl’s son were in the same seventh-grade class. After a few brief, friendly encounters at school functions, Dreyer invited Karl and his boy over for a tree-trimming party with the class, about fifteen kids and eight or nine parents in all. It was one of those enchanting days that you remember for a long time. Rove was the ringmaster of fun, brimming with good cheer, Mr. Silly, without a care in the world. All in attendance were warmed by his presence, and you never would have known that his job carried such awesome responsibility. Rove was far too busy decorating cookies and stringing popcorn to betray anything close to that. "Karl completely took charge, absolutely in the most endearing way possible. He had a vision of what each kid could contribute. What they could make or hang, based on how tall they were, or what they could do . . . what ornament, what Christmas ball. Need more lights? Hey, kids, let’s get in the car and go get some more lights!" Dreyer, a sober man, is trying not to go overboard about how all this affected him. "You expect a partisan who’s onstage all the time, and it doesn’t function that way in real life. You get a father and husband." He pauses. "I think it’s sad." What’s sad? I ask. "That we so often have such an extraordinarily one-dimensional view of people, of our fellow human beings." Not that Dreyer, having glimpsed Karl in repose, far from his natural habitat, sees him as anything less than extraordinary. "He was magnetic," Dreyer says dreamily. "He picked up my four-year-old son, Sam, so he could place the star atop the tree. It was lovely. Just lovely."

[Paladin2b]

An interesting article. Any guesses as to who the "senior White House official" quoted before DiIulio, the one feared summary dismissal, might have been?

[wardaddy]

Damn long article.

Interesting yes.....but in my view a bit of a hit piece masquerading as an objective critique with a little admiration for Rove's tenacity thrown in.

There was a plethora of dirt from folks who've been defeated or disregarded by Bush and or Rove. That sort of tilted it a bit don't you think?

I think the author was trying to convey that Bush and his team are every bit as political as Clinton was... only more efficient and disciplined. One major difference to me aside from policy, is that the Bush team which is indeed very very disciplined is not at all terribly poll sensitive and Bush is not even close to being the issue hijacker that Clinton was. Bush so far does not seem willing to drop ideology to keep power whereas this was Clinton....and Gore's modus operandi.

So Rove is a tough nut....if I were the leader of the free world, I'd like an army of loyal hard cases around me.

[Common Tator]

I think it was Deep Throat. Deep Throat has been a high ranking white house official since Lincoln was president. Deep Throat sucks right up to the media. If a reporter has enough drinks at the Press Club bar before going to sleep ole Deep Throat will visit at 3 in the morning in some dimly lit parking garage and provide the inside story. Reporters just have to hang on or hang over till he shows up. If singles don't work try doubles.

It is a new type attack on Bush. They have failed at painting Bush as the evil dunce. Now they paint him as the dummy with good instincts but alas he has fallen into the hands of the EVIL Karl Rove.

Do you realize what that DAMNED Bush and Rove are doing? The S.O.B.s are trying to find out what the AMERICAN people want done. NOT ONLY THAT but the S.O.B.s are trying to do what the people want done.

Where would LBJ, Richard Nixon, and Jimmmy Carter be if they had tried to please the American people and do the peoples will?

Presidents who want approval of the elite must follow the teaching of the Tri Lateral Commission on foreign affairs.They need to follow the advice of the Harvard Faculty to fix the economy. What kind of stupid idiot would hire a guy to tell him what the people want done and then (GASP) actually try to do it.

Here is a clue.

A President can't displease the people by doing what they want done. They will destroy him if he follows the elites and fails.

The voters don't even blame presidents when they do what the public wants and it doesn't work. If what the president does works, then the voters say, "I knew he was right all along." If he fails they say," I thought sure it would work... Now he's just got to try something different" If he tries something the public doesn't want, it had better work. If it fails the voters say ," I could have told that stupid S.O.B. it wouldn't work... We need a new president".

Who are those White House insiders that tell the media what it wants to hear? When I was in the media and wanted some juicy quotes, I tried for civil service workers in the White House or Executive Office building. There is a very active rumor mill and Senior can also mean near retirement age... dontcha know. A 64 year old janitor is about as senior as you can get and not be retired.

It is also true that many who get in an administration especially fresh from ruling over undergraduates in need of grades, get ticked with they find someone about 10 times as smart as they are beating them to the punch. Some times they beat them to the shrimp coctail.. but that is another story.

When a professor is the brightest person he has ever met, and then loses every battle to an ex-pollster from Texas it tends to ruin his whole year. It is hard to take when the profs idea of a pollster is a toe sucking Dick Morris.