Look at Bush's Smear Campaign against McCain in 2000.
Look familiar? Using a far right surrogate group to do the slandering while he pretends to be above it?
(from salon.com)
When Rove and Gov. Bush stepped onto the national stage in 2000, they had a big list of supporters, money and infrastructure that had been systems-checked in Texas. And they would use it to win by any means necessary and not fret over the ethics. Flying down to South Carolina after the upset defeat of Bush in the New Hampshire primary, Rove and Bush were said by a reliable source to have had a frank conversation about what was necessary to defeat Sen. John McCain, who had just defeated Bush in New Hampshire. A summit meeting was convened in Columbia and Rove delivered the message to the campaign operatives.
The candidate also tipped his hand to the strategy when he was overheard on a boom mike explaining his plans to Mike Fairs, a state senator. Fairs complained that Bush had not yet hit McCain's soft spots. "I'm going to," Bush said. "But I'm not going to do it on TV."
Because that's not the Rove way. Before the votes were cast, McCain was accused by Rove-managed surrogate groups of fathering a mixed-race child out of wedlock, being married to a drug addict, not being an attentive husband, using his wife's family fortune to buy his U.S. Senate seat and, worst of all, turning his back on Vietnam veterans; and all of this happened while George W. Bush was at rallies urging his primary opponent to please engage in a civilized debate on the issues.
Most of the accusations against McCain were contained in a World Magazine article, a weekly publication for Christian evangelicals. The magazine was edited by professor Marvin Olasky, an ideologue at the University of Texas -- a Communist Party member turned Republican, a Jew turned born-again Christian -- who had been recruited by Rove to refine his concept of "compassionate conservatism."
The vets' group denouncing McCain on behalf of Bush and Rove, the National Vietnam and Gulf War Veterans Coalition, was fronted by J. Thomas Burch Jr. Many of its members were driven by an obsession that there were still live Americans missing in action in Vietnam and McCain was failing to bring them home. McCain had considered that question resolved and had done his part as an elected representative and former prisoner of war to heal the war's losses. This was apparently the improper approach according to Burch, whose group was accused by McCain's camp of spreading rumors emanating from Karl Rove about the senator's mental stability after years in solitary confinement in a North Vietnamese prison.
When Wayne Slater, a reporter for the Dallas Morning News, wrote that the whisper campaign in South Carolina about McCain's mental health fit with previous Rove tactics in Texas, such as the whispers about Ann Richards' sexuality, Rove confronted the reporter on an icy tarmac in New Hampshire. "You're trying to ruin me," Rove hissed. "My reputation. You son of a bitch. It's my reputation." Bush, for his part, was less defensive. Not only did he refuse to denounce the fringe veterans' organization, he embraced its endorsement and dismissed McCain's complaints. On stage before the primary debate in Columbia, an enraged McCain confronted Bush. "You ought to be ashamed, George," McCain said.
"Senator, it's just politics," Bush answered.
"Everything's not politics, George."
At the media center in a Columbia hotel on primary night, it was obvious Rove's smear strategy had succeeded. When he passed my television crew's location on the riser, I acknowledged his achievement. "Congratulations, Karl. Looks like you did it."
"Hey, don't congratulate me," he said. "It was the candidate who won. He did it. Not me," Rove said.
"Sure, Karl. Whatever you say."
The tarnishing of John McCain's impeccable military service turned out to be tepid compared to how the Republicans and their surrogates, led by Rove, smeared Sen. Max Cleland of Georgia in the 2002 midterm elections. Cleland, who was one of the first senators to propose and begin drafting a measure for a Department of Homeland Security, had his concern for the country's safety turned into a political liability by Rove. Under Rove's guidance, Bush initially stated the U.S. government did not need another gigantic bureaucracy like Homeland Security. But Rove's polling discovered there was significant public support for the idea and he quickly got a group of Republican lawmakers to cobble together their own bill. However, Cleland voted against the Bush version because it included measures that drastically reduced the ability of federal employees to bargain for better wages and had removed key provisions that Cleland believed would make the new agency relatively ineffective. Hitting the campaign trail for reelection, Cleland, who left two legs and an arm in Vietnam, discovered that he was being called unpatriotic by his Rove-advised opponent, Saxby Chambliss, who never served in the military. A TV advertisement morphed Cleland's face with those of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. "Where does this take us?" Cleland asked me in an interview last year. "What good does this do for us as a country? I've been through worse before. I've lost limbs. But what about the people who are coming up and are thinking about public service? What are they going to think about it as their future? What does this say about our country?"
John McCain might well consider asking the same questions instead of standing at the side of the president at political rallies. When he calls the SBVT ads against his friend John Kerry "dishonorable and dishonest," he might add who he thinks is behind them.
In addition to his military résumé, McCain's other great strength as a political figure has been his call for campaign finance reform. Revisions to those laws were a threat to the way Rove and his clients conducted their fund-raising affairs. Before the 2002 primary campaign had reached New York, Rove had already dipped back into his Texas well of money and power. Suddenly, without explanation, an organization appeared on the scene that wanted McCain defeated and, of course, had nothing to do with the Bush campaign.
The front group called Republicans for Clean Air spent $2.5 million on television ads in New York to attack McCain's environmental record. This "independent" political action committee was simply two Dallas businessmen, Charles and Sam Wyly, who had given more than $200,000 to Bush's gubernatorial war chests. Charles was also a Bush "Pioneer," after raising more than $100,000 for the governor's presidential run.
The Texas GOP consultant who worked on developing the ads was Jeb Hensarling, a longtime business associate of James Francis. Francis was Karl Rove's mentor when they worked together on the first Bill Clements gubernatorial campaign. Francis is also one of George W. Bush's closest personal friends.
When reporters began calling to find out about the group distorting McCain's voting history on the environment, a public relations firm headed by Merrie Spaeth was hired to deal with the media. Spaeth, as has been reported, handled P.R. for the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and helped with early strategy meetings -- and in an earlier campaign had coached George H. W. Bush in his vice presidential debate preparations. She was married to the late Tex Lezar, who ran as lieutenant governor in 1994 when Bush first campaigned for governor. Lezar also was a senior partner in the law firm that found a place for John O'Neill.
When Republicans for Clean Air was exposed, the Wylys claimed they were pushing for, well, clean air. But there was a back story. When Gov. Bush privatized the University of Texas Investment Management Company, the managers he appointed placed $90 million of the university's endowment with Maverick Capital Fund. Maverick was founded and majority owned by the Wylys, who earn about a million a year in fees for managing the U.T. money, as well as a healthy percentage of any profits.
This is the way it works in Texas -- and, if it is up to Karl Rove, how it works in the rest of America. |
