Posted on 08/15/2007 5:49:20 AM PDT by laotzu
WASHINGTON — Not to be "ungenerous or self-centered," White House counselor Ed Gillespie said Tuesday that he thought some people overestimated Karl Rove's importance. After all, Gillespie pointed out, in the 2004 presidential campaign he himself headed the Republican National Committee, the heart of the party's operations. He talked to Rove, he said, only "from time to time."
Another White House official, asked what it would mean to lose the legendary strategist, whose departure was announced Monday, recalled that Rove started the staff's "ice cream Fridays."
As one of the most powerful and controversial presidential advisers in modern history heads for the exit at the end of the month, the White House is engaged in an unusual game of double spin: While President Bush bear-hugged Rove and showered him with praise in a South Lawn ceremony, officials such as Gillespie quietly began to whittle down Rove's image as the man who played a key role in almost every major decision of this Bush administration.
If all that sounds contradictory, it's just politics. Praising such a prominent member of the administration as he prepares to leave office is almost obligatory, especially since Rove remains an admired figure and longtime friend to many in the GOP's conservative base. At the same time, downsizing Rove puts some distance between Bush and a man who, for all his service to president and party, has become a lightning rod for Democratic attacks.
Reducing Rove's stature as he leaves could help the administration in the same way that Donald Rumsfeld's departure as secretary of defense temporarily eased pressure on the president's Iraq war policy.
White House aides deny they are engaging in spin.
Spokeswoman Dana Perino said she was just trying to humanize Rove when she told a Fox News interviewer about his creation of the Friday ice cream tradition. She said any attempt to downplay Rove's role is meant only to counteract misimpressions fostered by the news media and Rove's critics.
"There's probably a tendency on our part to explain that this has been a team effort and he has been an integral part of the team," she said Tuesday.
Yet Rove has been more than just another member of the White House team.
A posse of Democratic congressional investigators has been pushing hard for evidence that Rove went too far in politicizing the federal government, including the possibility that he improperly injected politics into the decision to fire several U.S. attorneys. The administration's own Office of Special Counsel also is investigating Rove's activities.
Those inquiries are still scheduled to go forward, but they may lose some of their steam with Rove gone.
"If the person you've been focusing on now leaves and goes to Texas, what do you do? That's the question facing Democrats at this point," said David Winston, a Republican pollster.
Even Rove has joined the game. Monday, the day his resignation was formally announced, he ridiculed journalists who dubbed him "Bush's brain" and said they built him up to "diminish" the president's abilities. But in the same discussion with reporters aboard Air Force One, Rove boasted that his office was just 15 steps away from the Oval Office.
And in discussing the multifaceted struggle between the Democratic Congress and the Bush White House, Rove said he was Moby Dick — the mythic white whale at the center of Herman Melville's epic novel — "and we've got three or four members of Congress who are trying to cast themselves in the part of Captain Ahab."
Although he lavishly praised Bush and his leadership, when Rove described Democrats as would-be captains of the whaling ship and himself as their quarry, there was no major role for Bush.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Queequeq?
Ha! Great toon! and I see that Karl has unleashed his weather machine on Texas just in time for his own return ;o)
I’ll be driving to Hunt today to visit with a client and will be passing by Rove’s place on the way. If there’s any activity there I’ll post about it.
I hope he leaves his weather machine with President Bush.
Might need it in Nov ‘08. ;)
Thanks. Your report would be appreciated.
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