more Rove gossip
D.C. CONFIDENTIAL
The Rove Less Traveled
Presidential pitbull Karl Rove has built his political career
retailing his opponents’ dirty laundry, but that hasn’t stopped him
from mounting a fierce campaign against an upcoming bio that delves a
little too deeply into details of his own personal life. Sources say
Rove has been furiously lobbying the authors to protest the impending
publication of The Architect: Karl Rove and the Master Plan for
Absolute Power.
The book was co-authored by Wayne Slater and James Moore, the veteran
Texas journalists who previously wrote the Dubya-bashing bestseller,
Bush’s Brain. Their new book paints the beleaguered presidential aide
as a ruthless political opportunist who let few things obstruct his
march to power.
While the authors’ description of Rove’s relationship with indicted
lobbyist Jack Abramoff is certain to have D.C. buzzing, their
revelations about his family life are even more intriguing: According
to the book, the architect of the Bush administration’s anti-gay
policies was raised by a homosexual father who abandoned his family
to lead an openly gay life in Palm Springs. A decade later, Rove’s
mother, Reba, committed suicide, a tragedy the authors attribute to
her husband’s departure.
Rove has always been circumspect about his childhood. He told one
reporter that he had not heard from his father since his youth. But
the book claims Rove maintained a close relationship with Louis Rove
until his death two years ago. Friends say he visited his father in
Palm Springs at least twice a year, and frequently dined with him and
his gay pals.
“He lived life exactly the way he wanted to live it,” Rove said of
Louis, who died just as his son was launching the Bush campaign’s
attack on same-sex marriage. Of course, his admiration for his father
did not stop him from using the “gay issue” for his own political
advantage.
For starters, the authors claim Rove was behind a series of lesbian
rumors that helped defeat incumbent Texas governor Ann Richards in
the 1994 gubernatorial election. During the same campaign he also
allegedly intimidated a reporter at the Dallas Morning News, Anne
Marie Kilday, by telling her he had obtained telephone records
showing numerous late-night calls to her home from a lesbian state
official. “You’ve got to be careful about your reputation and what
people might think,” Rove said.
Among the books other revelations:
Soon after Rove moved into his new office in the West Wing,
previously occupied by Hillary Clinton, he invited three top Catholic
priests to conduct a ceremony to purge the room of evil spirits. “It
was an actual liturgical ceremony,” says participant Deal Hudson. “We
sat at the table, we prayed. A priest said a series of prayers,
including a blessing.”
Rove was so paranoid about his meetings with indicted lobbyist Jack
Abramoff that he’d stroll a few blocks to meet Abramoff’s limo on a
nearby street corner where they would discuss business through a
lowered window. “Like I said, everything that comes out of the White
House is logged in,” explained Abramoff. “The phone calls he makes.
The phone calls he receives. So this is just easier. It keeps things
a lot cleaner. And he’s a fat fuck, and he can use the exercise.”
Texas’s then-governor George W. Bush once asked a reporter, “You know
what I’m gonna tell those Jews when I get to Israel, don’t you
Herman?” When the journalist, Ken Herman, replied that he did not
know, Bush reportedly quipped: “I’m telling ‘em they’re all going to
hell.”
Bush shocked Israel’s Ariel Sharon at their first Oval Office meeting
when, discussing Yasser Arafat, he asked, “Are you going to kill
him?” Later he added, “No. If he needs killing, I’ll do it.”
Rove’s longtime mentor is Michael Ledeen, an Iran-Contra dealmaker
and plagiarist suspected of being linked to the forged documents the
administration used to make the case for war in Iraq.
Though he earned his political stripes in his father’s White House,
the authors say Bush regularly derides his dad’s tenure: “Don’t
underestimate what you can learn from a failed presidency,” he once
told campaign media consultant Don Sipple.
The senior Bush apparently holds his fortunate son in similarly low
regard.