Although it is hard to imagine the first 6 1/2 years of the Bush administration without Karl Rove, the political strategist initially resisted serving in the White House.
“I almost didn’t come here because I talked to friends who worked for [George H.W. Bush] or Reagan or Nixon or Ford,” Rove told this reporter in a 2004 interview. “They said: ‘Oh, it’s a great job, you’ll love it. But it’ll also be the worst job you’ll ever have, because there’ll be backbiting, and the internecine warfare is intense, and people will leak to The Washington Post or The New York Times to sort of win their part of the policy battle.”
Rove took these concerns to the president-elect.
“I’m not up for that,” he recalled telling Bush. “I’m too simple a person for that. And I’m not good at that kind of stuff.”
“Look, you just gotta trust me,” Bush replied, according to Rove. “I know from what I’ve seen that I can set the right tone.”
Once he succeeded in reassuring Rove and other advisers, Bush found they were remarkably frank during policy discussions. In fact, Rove said, it was not uncommon for top aides to forcefully challenge the president on a variety of issues.
“Being liberated from worrying about how we each appear in the pages of The Washington Post or The New York Times … means that you can have the most robust arguments about policy with people that you love and respect, and know that at the end of the day, regardless of how it’s resolved, everybody’s gonna salute and move on,” Rove said.
Rove was particularly wary of the media because they frequently caricatured him as the Svengali of the White House, a diabolical genius who pulled the strings of a puppet president. And yet there was a certain political utility in this characterization, because it allowed Rove to serve as Bush’s lightning rod.
“The president has what he calls the better-you-than-me theory,” Rove said. “Look, this town runs on myths. It’s a convenient myth.”
He added: “What matters is achieving big goals. The president is very good at keeping people focused on what is it that we’re attempting to achieve here. And if you allow other people to start substituting things for his vision — which is essentially what happens when the press gets involved, unconsciously or intentionally — they start substituting other goals. And suddenly lots of bad things happen.”
