The Arrest of the Story?
Excerpt from the New Republic, November, 29, 1999.
Compiled by NR Staff
profile in the November 29, 1999, New Republic of Bush communications director Karen Hughes contains a passage that suggests the Texas governor said he had not been arrested after 1968. The article, entitled "The Enforcer," by Michelle Cottle, relates a conversation between Bush and Wayne Slater regarding the governor's arrest record. Slater, of the Dallas Morning News, has recalled the conversation for Cottle. As of today, the Bush camp is disputing the meaning of this conversation.
It's widely recognized that Bush trusts Hughes implicitly and seeks her advice on anything involving message or political positioning. "My sense of Karen is that she is one of the few people who is able to interrupt, contradict, and in other ways speak as an adult and a peer to Bush," says [Tucker] Carlson. In the message department, Hughes's primacy is absolute. For instance, although several members of Team Bush — including [Karl] Rove — felt the governor should come out early with multiple policy prescriptions, Hughes favored focusing on two or three broad themes. The governor apparently agreed with her.
Hughes's role, however, goes beyond that of a trusted adviser. "She can be a bit of a mother hen, and you can tell he wants her to do that. He kind of relies on her to do that," says David Yepsen, a veteran political reporter with The Des Moines Register. "I've never seen her argue with him, but she'll prompt, she'll flesh out — things like that." (At the risk of waxing Freudian, you can't help but notice the similarities, in both physique and character, between Hughes and George W.'s mama, Barbara.) At press conferences, notes Wayne Slater, "when somebody asks something or says something and Bush isn't responding well enough, she'll be off to the side; Bush will instinctively stop — this has gone on for years — and all heads will turn to her as she explains something real loud. It happens so often that he instinctively falls back and lets her do it."
Indeed, it's Hughes's message discipline that gives Bush the freedom to be the friendly good old boy that voters (and the media) embrace. "Bush is a chatty guy who loves an audience," says Carlson. "He's very good at bullshitting with the guys. That's very appealing." But it can also be dangerous, and Bush counts on Hughes to keep him on track. Jay Root recalls one interview in which Bush was being slightly more talkative than usual. "He said a couple of things that might have gone farther than she might have said," says Root. Hughes didn't stop the governor, but at one point she commented, "My, isn't he being expansive today."
Other times Hughes simply shuts down the conversation. Just after the governor's reelection in 1998, Slater pressed Bush about whether he had ever been arrested. "He said, 'After 1968? No.' I said, 'What about before 1968?' He said, 'Well…' and at that moment Karen stepped in and said, 'Wait a minute, I've not heard this.' She clearly wasn't prepared for whatever it was he was about to say, and he shut up." Slater argued that it was better for the governor to deal with any revelations sooner rather than later, and Bush agreed to get back to him on the matter. "To this day I have no idea what he was going to say," says Slater. "After she got to him, he shut up."
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