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Karl in a Corner
http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_scott_ho_080408_karl_in_a_corner.htm
Second, Rove’s opponents would regularly find that they had suddenly become the target
of a criminal investigation, and details concerning the investigation would be
aggressively fanned to the press. Rove mastered this technique in a contest
for the Texas Agriculture Commissioner’s post that he managed for now-Governor Rick Perry.

It Started in Texas: Karl Rove’s Political Prosecutions
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/07/hbc-90000569
1. Rove was hired to run the campaign of Rick Perry, the current governor,
for the powerful Texas office of Commissioner of Agriculture, then held by
Democrat Jim Hightower. Shortly thereafter, it was clear that a major
FBI investigation had been launched into the workings of the Texas Agriculture
Department (TDA), focusing on Hightower and his senior lieutenants, who had been
pursuing a populist, anti-corporate agriculture and pro-small-farmer agenda.

Jim Hightower talks about his new book, “Thieves in High Places: They’ve Stolen Our Country and it’s Time to Take it Back”
http://www.buzzflash.com/interviews/03/08/21_hightower.html
HIGHTOWER: Rick Perry, back then (currently Texas Governor), was his client, so to speak,
and Perry had been recruited. He was sort of a nothing Texas legislator who had been brought
in — again as an affable fellow without any brain muscle. Perry was essentially sent to
wander around out in West Texas during the campaign so he would be out of the way,
while Rove worked this FBI agent and raised money from the chemical industry
and other corporate interests that opposed me. Rove had George Bush go on
television against me. Then Rove ran a series of television ads that
established a new low in negative advertising.

For example, they showed a long-haired guy setting a flag on fire,
and throwing it on the ground. And then my picture came up out of the fire, and said
“Hightower supports flag burning,” which, of course, I don t. But it doesn t matter,
you know. I had to go around answering: “Why do you support flag burning?”
Rove had another ad of me campaigning with Jesse Jackson, who I supported in 1988
in the Presidential campaign. And Rove ran this ad that essentially was a smear
on Jackson and then tying me to him. The ad so angered the Black Caucus in the State Legislature
that they convened their own press conferences in Houston and Dallas to assail it. But again it was too late.
All this was happening in the last three weeks of the election. So, I mean, that s just who the guy is.