8-27-07, 9:12 am

Bush Administration consigliere and political operative Karl Rove will resign effective the end of the month. Recently he had been subpoenaed in regard to the firing of federal judges. When Rove wasn’t denying Blacks the right to vote, he created a climate of voter fraud paranoia aimed at opponents. I find his planned departure as somewhat of a surprise. “He was the go-to guy when the administration wants to put politics ahead of the country,” said talk radio’s Stacy Taylor.

Rove engineered a lot of political moves that have since become or should have become scandals. During some of these, other members of the administration have taken the fall for him. The one he should have been subpoenaed for was the first, the one that-for whatever reason-is taken the least serious among the American voters and least explored by the major American media; the Florida voter fraud. People have said that one of Rove’s tactics is to attack his opponent’s strength. While other Republican strategists have mastered the art of searching for weakness, even to the point of nitpicking, or outright lies, Rove dares to assault that most admirable quality others observe about the opposition. He called George McGovern a “left-wing peacenik” even though McGovern flew a B-24 during WWII. During Vietnam Rove used his draft deferment even though he was just a part-time student; he attended several Universities including Utah and Maryland but graduated from none of them. The Swift-Bus veteran would eventually rear his ugly head over and over again.

What does Karl Christian Rove (his actual middle name) have to do with voter fraud you ask? Rove dropped out of college back in ’71 to ironically take a position in a group known as the College Republican National Committee. During the Watergate controversy the Washington Post broke a story about some recordings of Rove discussing his brand of campaigning to a class of young republicans at a few seminars, which included rummaging through opponent’s garbage cans and no-doubt other dirty tricks. In ’94 while working the campaign of Perry Hooper for chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court Rove won what was then the closest race of his career by accusing Hooper’s opponent of voter fraud and even hiring investigators to observe the counting and produce evidence of fraud in various counties, even though he knew there was none.

Of course the charge led to a recount and though Hooper trailed by 698 votes the morning after the election and lost by 304 votes, “the charges of voter fraud led to an Election 2000 Florida-style recount and naturally wound up in court. The case dragged on for nearly a year and eventually was settled by the United States Supreme Court-in favor of Rove’s client,” according to a 4/12/07 article in the Atlantic.com website. This is not the first time Rove bargained on opponents throwing up their arms over his tireless undermining and judicial filibustering that must have squeezed all the pleasure out of politics that can be traced. Apparently the worst was yet to come. Reportedly back in ’60 at the age of nine Rove decided he wanted to back Richard Nixon. If this didn’t give you some idea of his future direction, nothing would. Twelve years later he signed on to Nixon’s campaign but not before running for National Chairman of College Republicans.

By then he met Lee Atwater and eventually he introduced him to George H.W. Bush. The rest, as they say, is history. Rove met W in 11/73. I can’t link Rove to the Florida voter purge but it has all the circumstantial earmarks. On 9/6/73 young Rove was chosen by Bush (George’s father) to be the Chairman of the College Republicans effective on the 16th. His opponent Robert Edgeworth received a nasty letter from Bush who told him he was out of the party for leaking information about the seminars to the Post. Unlike George W, the elder Bush took leaks to the press very personally, he would fire Rove a couple of times when Rove worked his campaigns.

Since meeting Bush Sr. however, Rove continued a paid political consultant career that became more high profile. He would represent the likes of John Ashcroft (’94 Senate), Rick Perry and eventually George W on two Texas gubernatorial campaigns and of course his 2000 presidential campaign where he would once again see his client trailing late in the race by more than half a million votes. Naturally it wound up in court. The case dragged on and was eventually settled by the US Supreme Court in favor of Rove’s client. Apparently the worst was yet to come. It turns out the Florida voter scandal that still warrants so much focus is only the tip of the iceberg.

--Chris Stevenson is a columnist for the Buffalo Criterion. Contact him at

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