Karl Rove

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Karl Rove

Karl Christian Rove (born December 25, 1950 in Denver , Colorado ) was Deputy Chief of Staff of the White House until August 31, 2007 , party strategist and political advisor to the Republican Party in the USA and one of the most important advisors to George W. Bush .

Life

Rove taught journalism at the University of Texas' Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs and was chairman of Karl Rove & Company ( Austin , Texas ), a public relations firm. Rove has been friends with the family of George W. Bush for 30 years, led all of Bush's election campaigns and advised him when he intended to become governor of Texas.

Rove is notorious for its political sensitivity (or his ruthlessness as accuse him of opponents: "An ideological strategist who has often distorts the truth," said the chairman of the Democrats , Terry McAuliffe ) and its strategic feints: For example, diving information about the opponents that are launched anonymously or allegedly by third parties, such as the Swift Boat Veterans For Truth , who violently attacked Bush's opponent John Kerry in the 2004 election campaign.

Allegedly the values campaign in the 2004 election campaign goes back to him , which brought millions of undecided Christians (the “ religious right ”) to the polls in America and which many observers believe helped Bush to victory. Bush described him in a speech on November 3, 2004 as the “architect” of his election victory.

In February 2005 he was named Deputy Chief of Staff of the White House after he had long been considered the most influential employee of President Bush (the "most powerful adviser to the White House in modern US history ", judged Bush's ex-adviser John Dilulio ), so to the deputy of Andrew Card . Rove was now also responsible for coordinating various departments from business to internal security .

Rove was charged in July 2005 as the source of the identity betrayal of CIA agent Valerie Plame . The agent's real identity was passed on to and published by a conservative columnist, probably to get revenge on her husband Joseph Wilson. Former US Ambassador Wilson was critical of the US Republican government and is at odds with Vice President Cheney about the ambassador’s trip to Niger in 2002, during which Wilson examined reports on uranium deals. Patrick Fitzgerald, charged with investigating the CIA leak, informed Rove in June 2006 that he would not be charged. Instead, the focus is on Lewis "Scooter" Libby , a confidante and associate of Rove, who resigned from his post in the White House a few months earlier in connection with the affair.

The political strategies of the White House remained his main domain until he announced his resignation on April 19, 2006 as a special advisor to the US President George W. Bush. However, he initially remained Deputy Chief of Staff of the White House and official adviser to the President. He also organized the Republican Party's campaign for the November 7, 2006 congressional elections .

Leaving the White House

Rove with George W. Bush and his wife Laura Bush, 2007

On August 13, 2007, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal , he announced that he would be stepping down from the post of deputy chief of staff in late August 2007. Rove named mostly family reasons for leaving. The decisive factor in his resignation was a statement by Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten , according to which all high-ranking Bush employees would have to remain in office until the end of the Bush administration in January 2009 if they did not step down by the end of August. Rove had previously come under massive criticism because of the affair surrounding the dismissal of eight US federal attorneys. The eight attorneys accuse the White House of being removed from office because they were not "Bush-friendly enough". After his divorce, Rove wants to teach and write a book about his collaboration with Bush.

In connection with the investigations of the e-mail -Verkehrs of staff of the White House regarding the dismissals of the United States Attorney was revealed that many online of them, including Rove, documents on the server of the Republican National Committee exchanged and third provider had, which constitutes a violation of the Presidential Records Act - among other things because it prevents the mandatory automatic archiving of official White House communications that are supposed to keep them traceable and verifiable. Over 500 of Rove's emails were also inadvertently sent to a parody website, which she forwarded to an investigative journalist. On April 24, 2007, it was announced that Rove was being investigated for his involvement in the email scandal, the questionable dismissals of federal prosecutors, and for "improper political influence on government decisions."

Because of these and other unresolved allegations against Rove, John Edwards , who ran for the Democratic Republic's 2004 run as a candidate for president in 2008 , initiated an online petition to the US President to fire Rove. Edwards comments on Rove's departure on his website with a single sentence: "And bye." ( Originally : "Goodbye, good riddance.").

During 2007 several other high-ranking officials in the Bush administration also announced their resignation, including (like Rove in August) President Tony Snow and the controversial Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales .

Appreciation

Rove cultivated the image of a " gray eminence " during his political activities and, despite his extraordinary influence on George W. Bush, remained almost unknown outside - and often inside - the USA for a long time. For a long time only insiders were aware of its outstanding importance for US politics.

Shielding his most important advisors from the public as much as possible always seemed to have been a central concern of the 43rd US President: "Most politicians find the cult of political advisers annoying, but George W. Bush always seemed to find it particularly annoying" .

Rove appears on the TV sitcom “ Here Comes Bush! “ Portrayed by actor Kurt Fuller and often satirized by satire .

Rove is also parodied in the 7th episode of the 1st season of the cartoon series American Dad and portrayed as evil personified. He wears a habit all the time, his body catches fire when he tries to enter a church and a wolf howls when he says his name.

Quotes

“Rove is difficult. His usual style is ironic - sometimes he seems to blink his eye when he expresses indignation over the unjust ascription of his enormous influence. "

- Mike Nice : New York Times , August 13, 2007

"During his career, Rove became the most prominent political strategist of his generation, an abomination for liberals and even for a number of conservative critics."

- Peter Baker, Debbi Wilgoren : Washington Post , August 13, 2007

"His opponents not only feared the top consultant with the image of personified unscrupulousness, they also admired him."

- Daniel Jahn : Die Welt , August 13, 2007

"Rove's role behind the scenes in selling and promoting the Iraq war was far more significant than is generally known."

- Michael Isikoff : Newsweek , August 13, 2007

"The President himself sometimes called him 'Turd Blossom' (for example: dung blossom) because Rove, the luminary of all spin doctors , knew better than anyone how to make the most beautiful flowers out of even the most vulgar dirt."

- Christoph Prantner : Der Standard , August 14, 2007

“... if Rove had left the White House after George W. Bush was re-elected in 2004, he would have been a hero, a man who would have been remembered as one of the great political tacticians of the past half century. [...] Rove's strategic vision included securing a Republican victory at the expense of conservative principles. "

- Jonah Goldberg : Los Angeles Times , August 14, 2007

"Rove was always more than an election campaign manager - he was and is a staunch conservative ideologue."

- Beate Seel : taz , August 14, 2007

"I am a myth."

- Karl Rove, August 13, 2007

See also

literature

  • Carl M. Cannon: Boy Genius: Karl Rove, the Architect of George W. Bush's Remarkable Political Triumphs. Public Affairs Press, New York 2005, ISBN 1-58648-336-6 .
  • James C. Moore, Wayne Slater: Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential. John Wiley and Sons, New York 2003, ISBN 0-471-42327-0 (was made into a film under the same title)

Web links

Commons : Karl Rove  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikiquote: Karl Rove  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Rove, Bush Have Long History . AP timeline, August 13, 2007.
  2. ↑ George W. Bush, November 3, 2004 speech .
  3. ↑ Matt Cooper's Source: What Karl Rove told Time magazine's reporter . In: Newsweek , in press: Jul 18, 2005.
  4. ↑ a b Karl Rove to Resign At the End of August . In: The Wall Street Journal , August 13, 2007.
  5. ↑ US Attorney Firings Investigation . In: Washington Post , Special.
  6. ↑ Tom Hamburger: Inquiry of Rove brings unit out of obscurity . In: LA Times . April 24, 2007.
  7. ^ Fire Karl Rove - Time to go . ( Memento of the original from August 15, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / johnedwards.com
  8. ^ Edwards Statement on the Resignation of Karl Rove .
  9. ↑ Matthias Rüb : Bush's team - Texas is far away . In: FAZ , August 30, 2007.
  10. ↑ Steven Lee Myers, Philip Shenon: Embattled Attorney General Resigns . In: New York Times . August 27, 2007. (English)
  11. ↑ Nicholas Lemann: Rovian Ways . In: The New Yorker . August 27, 2007.
  12. ↑ Mike Nice: Rove's August Surprise . In: The New York Times . August 13, 2007.
  13. ^ Peter Baker, Debbi Wilgoren: Karl Rove, Adviser to President Bush, to Resign . In: The Washington Post . August 13, 2007.
  14. ↑ Daniel Jahn: Karl Rove: "Bush's brain" leaves the White House . In: The world . August 13, 2007.
  15. ↑ Michael Isikoff: Karl Rove's Iraq War Role . In: msnbc . August 13, 2007. (English)
  16. ↑ Christoph Prantner: Bye-bye, Bush's Brain! In: The Standard . August 14, 2007.
  17. ^ Jonah Goldberg : Karl Rove: Bush's Napoleon . In: Los Angeles Times . August 14, 2007. (English)
  18. ↑ Beate Seel: Bush's brain missing . In: taz . August 14, 2007.
personal data
SURNAME Rove, Karl
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rove, Karl Christian (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American party strategist
DATE OF BIRTH December 25, 1950
PLACE OF BIRTH Denver , Colorado