'Architect' Builds Bush Policies, Legacy
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Some Republicans Are Worried by Idea Of a White House Without Adviser Rove
By JOHN D. MCKINNON
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
October 10, 2005
WASHINGTON -- Among the problems besetting the White House, the CIA leak investigation appears most threatening. That is because one of those under scrutiny, deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, is far more than merely the strategist behind President Bush's campaign victories.
Mr. Rove is the administration's indispensable man, the connective tissue between the policies and constituencies needed to win elections and govern. Some Republicans even link the administration's recent setbacks on Hurricane Katrina and Harriet Miers to Mr. Rove's legal distractions -- and say they fear worse if he were forced to leave the White House over the investigation. The inquiry centers on whether Bush administration officials leaked the name of Central Intelligence Agency operative Valerie Plame in retaliation for criticism of the war in Iraq by her husband, former diplomat Joseph Wilson.
Mr. Rove's White House role ranges beyond the social issues that stir evangelical Christians and the tax cuts that rally economic conservatives. This summer, when nine senators from both parties gathered in the Roosevelt Room to discuss immigration, the main White House figure wasn't the domestic policy adviser but Mr. Rove. He led a briefing on the administration's plans for stiffening border security while easing the path to legal residency for many Mexican-born workers already here.
His steering of that explosive debate shows why the president's brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, calls Mr. Rove "invaluable to the administration." Others say his combination of brains, conservative commitment, and a quarter-century relationship with Mr. Bush would make it harder to replace him than any other senior administration official. The White House declined requests for an interview with Mr. Rove.
"If you could clone Karl and bring in someone who had his talent and instincts, but not the relationship with Bush, it would be 50-60% as good," says conservative activist Grover Norquist.
The evolution of Mr. Bush's statements on the CIA leak case indicate how loath he is to lose the man he has described as his political "architect." Early on in the controversy over the disclosure of Ms. Plame's identity, the president vowed to fire anyone involved. Later, after testimony implicating Mr. Rove became public, Mr. Bush expressed a looser standard, saying he would remove aides who committed crimes. Last week, amid speculation that Mr. Rove might face charges from special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, Mr. Bush wouldn't say whether he would remove an aide under indictment.
The president has long demonstrated how much he values the relationship. In 2001, he installed Mr. Rove as a senior White House adviser rather than dispatching him to head the Republican National Committee -- as his father, President George H. W. Bush, had done with campaign strategist Lee Atwater.
Inside the White House, Mr. Rove developed a reputation for mastering policy details and injecting himself into all manner of issues. Debating a plan to expand disabled veterans' benefits, Mr. Rove offered a summary of two centuries of federal employee benefit history and opposed the expansion as a bad precedent.
"A typical occupant of his office would have said, 'Give 'em everything they want,' "says Mitch Daniels Jr., then Mr. Bush's budget director and now governor of Indiana. The White House dropped the idea.
In late 2002, when other advisers suggested a 50% tax cut on stock dividends as politically wisest, Mr. Rove urged full elimination on the basis of philosophical principle. "If double taxation of dividends is wrong, why do we want to settle for just eliminating 50%?" he asked, according to former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill's recounting. Mr. Bush sided with Mr. Rove -- and wound up getting more than a 50% reduction in rates.
Some top-rank strategists, like the elder Mr. Bush's longtime ally James Baker, seek the statesman's mantle and shy away from political nitty-gritty. Others, like President Clinton's adviser James Carville, chose the lucrative private sector over government work. But Mr. Rove has remained at the president's side after guiding two election victories, pursuing his goal of cementing a Republican majority that outlasts Mr. Bush's tenure in the White House.
Some allies complain his political judgments appear to have trumped policy concerns. Marvin Olasky, an academic who helped inspire Mr. Bush's 2000-vintage "compassionate conservatism," says the idea still "hasn't really been tried." Instead, he says, the White House has focused on "check-writing" to faith-based groups -- often in minority communities where the White House wants to gain support. Jim Towey, who heads the White House faith-based initiative, has said it is aimed instead at righting the imbalance that existed under old federal rules, which prevented church-affiliated groups from seeking or obtaining government money.
Critics say Mr. Rove has a win-at-any-cost philosophy. Aside from accusing him of leaking Ms. Plame's identity, they link him to the 2004 presidential campaign's "Swift Boat" ads challenging decorated Vietnam veteran John Kerry; Mr. Rove has denied involvement in the spots. One longtime antagonist, former Texas Republican Chairman Tom Pauken, calls Mr. Rove a "Nixonesque" figure without an "ethical compass." Backers respond by citing his commitment to policy rather than cashing in. "Karl ... rightfully believes we are in a time of great historical significance," Gov. Bush said in an email interview. "He wants to be part of it, rather than pontificating about it [and] charging a large fee."
His delight in the connections between policy and politics is evident on the White House Web site, where Mr. Rove conducts a virtual tour of the Roosevelt Room -- the meeting room just off the Oval Office where many policy decisions are made. During the tour, Mr. Rove admires a portrait of Theodore Roosevelt on horseback in his Rough Rider days.
True to Mr. Roosevelt's internationalist spirit, Mr. Rove is credited by people close to the administration with a pivotal role in winning House passage of the Central American Free Trade Agreement. When job-conscious Republican lawmakers balked, Mr. Rove devised the strategy of linking freer trade to the global war on terrorism that helped win the decisive votes.
A voracious reader, Mr. Rove augmented the administration's Iraq war effort with research by Duke University social scientists who dispute conventional wisdom that rising casualties erode public backing for military conflicts. The academics, who said the key to maintaining support is public confidence in eventual victory, have influenced the White House strategy of pointing to political benchmarks like this week's vote on a constitution.
Lately Mr. Rove has helped lead the effort to recover from initial struggles over Hurricane Katrina by rebuilding the Gulf Coast -- and Mr. Bush's image. Mr. Rove solicited policy proposals from conservative think tanks to shape the president's prime-time speech from the New Orleans French Quarter. That effort has yielded few public-opinion dividends.
Mr. Rove's attempts to build support during the past week for Supreme Court nominee Miers have been similarly unavailing. He backed her selection in White House deliberations, believing she could satisfy conservatives while avoiding a battle with Senate Democrats.
Mr. Rove has agreed to testify a fourth time before a grand jury in Mr. Fitzgerald's CIA-leak investigation, which could wrap up by the end of the month. Mr. Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, said last week that his client hasn't received a target letter, which would be an indication that he likely would be charged. Mr. Rove's legal problems have led to speculation about how the White House might cope without him. One potential addition: former Republican National Committee chairman Ed Gillespie, a Rove favorite.
If Mr. Rove avoids prosecution the question of staff reshuffling could be moot. At a minimum, however, associates discern a tempering of the high-spirited practical jokes and impromptu bursts of song that have marked his White House work. |
