NYT: With Bush Safely Re-elected, Rove Turns Intensity to Policy

[DeepModem Mom]

With Bush Safely Re-elected, Rove Turns Intensity to Policy
By RICHARD W. STEVENSON

Published: March 28, 2005


....As Mr. Bush pushes doggedly ahead with his battle to add investment accounts to Social Security, he is betting heavily on Mr. Rove's well-chronicled political skills to build public support, hold Republicans together and overcome intense Democratic opposition....Mr. Rove is assuming a more expansive role, bringing the same intensity to the big issues in Mr. Bush's second-term agenda that he brought to the president's re-election campaign. In naming Mr. Rove deputy White House chief of staff for policy last month, on top of his continuing catch-all title of senior adviser, the president formally recognized Mr. Rove's affinity for the nitty-gritty of governance and publicly acknowledged his influence over whatever deal might emerge on Social Security, his No. 1 domestic priority.

"All roads lead to Karl," said Kenneth J. Duberstein, a Republican lobbyist who was the White House chief of staff under President Ronald Reagan and is now part of Mr. Rove's vast network of informal advisers and intelligence gatherers.

Under one of his hats, Mr. Rove is running a sophisticated campaign on behalf of the president's Social Security proposals, employing all the components of the national political machine built to re-elect Mr. Bush. Under the other, he is overseeing policy meetings where the administration's senior officials analyze the competing Social Security proposals, bone up on arcane economic concepts and plot how to hit back at the substantive arguments made by people on the other side of the issue.

Other presidents have had powerful advisers with a hand in both politics and policy. The most-cited model in recent times is James A. Baker III, who had a wide-ranging portfolio in the administrations of Mr. Reagan and Mr. Bush's father, and went from political operative to treasury secretary, to secretary of state, then back to overseeing a presidential campaign.

But the intensity of Mr. Rove's involvement in politics and policy makes his current status unusual and gives him remarkably broad authority inside the White House and out. And in giving Mr. Rove his new title, Mr. Bush, freed from the need to think about re-election, seemed to acknowledge what everyone in Washington knows: that in this administration, as in all others, politics and policy are inextricably intertwined....


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/28/politics/28rove.html

[deadparrot]

1. Yeeeah, look how well that turned out, KKKarl.

Can I pee on him? I really want to.

[applegrove]

3. Is that an illusion to Hitler & his sexual prowess (seems water

sports are as close as H came to getting it on). Cause the freak that he is ... he might interpret what you said... as something 'good'.

[deadparrot]

5. LOL...was not the intended effect.

Any better suggestions? :)

[applegrove]

9. Let's just keep cutting through the propaganda meant to

fool people into buying into something good for the elites when it is very bad for the average American (Canadian...this fierce coldness has a way of spreading).

If the average person is giving up stuff by allowing 'guest workers' or considering changes to SS that are about working longer....if the average person is giving something up..the elites better be too.

If we name call (rather than inform) we do get to let off steam. But we should try and stick to informative insults.

Rovbots... KKKarl "Gee - it seems like that Rove doesn't need any downtime for that most of the rest of us require to process emotion? Just like your average player".

I don't know?:shrug:

[deadparrot]

10. Done.

Not that it's hard where I live. Very sheltered and closed-minded. They've heard one side of the issue, and aren't used to opposition. It's almost fun to throw a bunch of facts in their face and watch them squirm.

[glitch]

2. So.. Karl feels the need for a little PR huh? Got to keep that image up

and the NYT is happy to help. Isn't that sweet.

[applegrove]

11. I hear Brit election is getting really vicious... perhaps this

article is some fog to keep us from seeing his 'work' in Britain. Cause if they think he is involved it is the kiss of death for Blair.

Most of what he does is staged. Why not the whole image of him hard at work on American Issue.

[Catherine Vincent]

4. Bulldog's girlfriend is coming out of his cave?

[swag]

6. His failure to appreciate the differences between an election campaign

and an effective legislative effort isn't doing him any favors.

But I sure won't be the one to clue him in to the differences.

[Erika]

8. Karl Rove is lost

His big thing was to get the far-right wing to vote for W. They did.

As Peggy Noonan said, if he didn't keep Terri from death, he's history.

[truthisfreedom]

12. in your opinion, does she have value to the thugs as a martyr?

[Nostradammit]

7. They forgot to mention -

"Other presidents have had powerful advisers with a hand in both politics and policy. The most-cited model in recent times is James A. Baker III, who had a wide-ranging portfolio in the administrations of Mr. Reagan and Mr. Bush's father, and went from political operative to treasury secretary, to secretary of state, then back to overseeing a presidential campaign..."


...and started an armament company with Frank Carlucci and the Bin Ladens of Saudi Arabia. Later to be joined by the president's father.

How could they overlook that small detail?

[rodeodance]

13. With Bush Safely Re-elected, Rove Turns Intensity to Policy

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/28/politics/28rove.html?th&emc=th

With Bush Safely Re-elected, Rove Turns Intensity to Policy
By RICHARD W. STEVENSON

Published: March 28, 2005



ASHINGTON, March 27 - Jack Kemp was causing problems for President Bush's drive to overhaul Social Security, and it naturally fell to Karl Rove, Mr. Bush's strategist, enforcer and closet policy expert, to take him on.

Mr. Kemp, the 1996 Republican vice presidential nominee and a founder of a conservative advocacy group, was publicly attacking an idea floated by the White House to cut benefits in the retirement system and was rallying support for an alternative approach that, on paper, would be pain free. Mr. Kemp's statements exposed a split among Republicans and complicated the administration's efforts to prepare the public for possible benefit cuts.


After a ceremony several months ago in the White House East Room that Mr. Kemp attended, Mr. Rove sought him out, associates of the two men said. But their exchange was less a scolding by Mr. Rove, they said, than an assertive, detailed argument against Mr. Kemp's favored approach. Mr. Rove, they said, went through a point-by-point critique of the plan and left Mr. Kemp with the message that he considered it unworkable.

As Mr. Bush pushes doggedly ahead with his battle to add investment accounts to Social Security, he is betting heavily on Mr. Rove's well-chronicled political skills to build public support, hold Republicans together and overcome intense Democratic opposition.

[acmavm]

14. It is propaganda articles like this that promote the false idea

that KKKarl is an invincible 'genius'. KKKarl is just a very ugly evil little vermin of a man who has the power of some really diabolical people behind him. He's a scheming gutter-dwelling rat bastard who lies easier than he breathes.

If the media, like the damn NYT didn't report stories that make KKKarl sound like Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman all rolled into one obese disgusting rotund body, he'd have a lot less power than he has. There would be FEWER freaks to read and believe the lie that is bush**.

[The Backlash Cometh]

15. It would be a huge mistake to say that Bush was safely re-elected.

If Rove doesn't have a fungus growth on the back of his neck from all the moisture from the breathing on his neck, it can only be because he has reptilian skin.

[jmcon007]

16. Rovie

Unless Boy Genius gets his pocket watch out and hypnotizes all of us, I'd say he's got his little pee pee in a wringer.
No spinning in the world is going to change the facts as we know them to be. They went too fast on private accounts and weren't sharp enough to know that when they started talking their Chicken Little schtick on Social Security, many Americans who may have been dozing before were damn sure awake now....and they're listening. It's 'put the Genie back in the bottle time' for Rove.
I personally believe for the first time he's beginning to experience flashes of panic as he begins to lose control of information flow. Nothing is more critical to Rove than to be able to create and tightly control propoganda. That's him and he serves no other purpose....at all. None. He was the little fat boy in school with a pocket protector who was always picked on and now, by damn, he's going to make us all pay.
I sense we're seeing the very beginnings of everything starting to unravel. If more Americans are, indeed, beginning to listen and pay attention, his goose is cooked.
Democrats just have to be careful and not get sucked into Rove's traps anymore, i.e. the Republicans demanding that we put OUR S.S. plan on the table. It seems in the past we ducked when we should have punched and punched when we should have ducked. We're beginning to find our bearings, I think.
For now, let 'em twist. Signs that they're coming apart is Limbaugh and Noonan so angry they're saying things that make them seem unbalanced, fighting amongst themselves over Terri Schiavo, etc...
It couldn't happen to a nicer bunch.
Sniff..

[paineinthearse]

17. Graphic - all roads lead to Rove

[paineinthearse]

18. comment on the photos

All are very unflattering, but I don't think they were intentionally selected for this attribute. This is how these people "normally" appear.