Ronald Kessler
Karl Rove's decision to leave the White House at the end of the month makes perfect sense.
Besides getting a huge advance in a book deal, Rove will be contributing to President Bush's legacy by writing a book that will be more widely read if it comes out when Bush is still president.
As part of shaping Bush's legacy, he is going to be one of the key planners of the Bush library, where he will have a prominent position. Rove is a brilliant student of American history, surpassing the most erudite history professors. He will relish comparing Bush with other presidents.
Rove will still be available whenever the president needs his advice. In the meantime, Ed Gillespie, as counselor to the president, has begun to provide political advice that Karl otherwise might give.
At Gillespie's urging, Bush has responded more aggressively to attacks by the Democrats on his war policies and has taken them on over excessive spending. Pushed by Gillespie, Bush has made more public appearances. The fact that Bush flew to the site of the bridge collapse in Minneapolis shows he has learned since Hurricane Katrina that for political reasons, a president must make such appearances.
In an interview with Paul Gigot, who broke the story of Rove's resignation in the Wall Street Journal, Rove denied that his departure now is intended to avoid congressional scrutiny.
"I know they'll say that," Rove said. "But I'm not going to stay or leave based on whether it pleases the mob."
As a political strategist, Rove's job was to advise Bush what programs, policies, and campaign promises would sell well. Rove was critical to fashioning Bush's two election victories.
When Collister "Coddy" Johnson first began working for the Bush campaign in 1999, he had the task of drafting a letter from Bush to Iowa farmers. Johnson was in Rove's office on the first floor of campaign headquarters in Austin when Rove read his draft. Rove wrote a few notes on the letter and handed it back to Johnson. At the top, Rove had written, "Purpose?"
"What do you mean by ‘purpose,' sir?" Johnson asked. "If you mean the thesis, I think it's right there, in the last line of the first graph – the thesis, I mean."
"The thesis, eh?" Rove replied. "Well, if that's your Ivy-league language," he said to the Yale graduate, "let's talk about theses, antitheses, and syntheses," using philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's formulations. "Where is the tension in the letter? How do you drive the purpose, its synthesis, from that tension? I don't see it, and I don't think the second and third graphs carry it."
Johnson, who became national field director of the 2004 campaign, walked back to his desk, recognizing that the letter was dull and somewhat amazed that Hegel had just been quoted in a campaign office. In the White House, Rove participated in every significant decision with the exception of issues involving the war and national security. "Karl will participate in many types of decisions by giving strategic and political advice," Alberto Gonzales told me when he was White House counsel.
"For example, Karl may tell the president this is what we believe will be the public reaction in certain parts of the country to a particular decision. However, the decision to go to war was not driven by Karl's political advice."
The press dubbed Rove "Bush's Brain," suggesting that Bush had none. "Karl Rove thinks it, and George W. Bush does it," James Moore and Wayne Slater said flatly in their book "Bush's Brain." But it was Bush who decided how to meld Rove's political advice with his own principles and advice from policy aides about the content of programs.
While they are friends, it was always clear who was boss. Occasionally, Bush would bring Karl up short. Seeing reporters gathered around Rove on the presidential campaign plane, Bush said sarcastically, "Is the Karl Rove press conference over yet?" But when Bush discussed ideas with other aides, he would ask, "What does Karl think?"
While the media delight in deriding Bush's brain, it was that same brain that recognized Rove as perhaps the greatest political tactician in American history. Now Rove has taken his own tactical advice on when to leave. His timing, as usual, is perfect.
Ronald Kessler is chief Washington correspondent of NewsMax.com. View his previous reports and get his dispatches sent to you free via e-mail. Go here now.
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