[StBernard] Conservative Review - Catching Up With Karl Rove

[Westley Annis]

Catching Up With Karl Rove
by Bill Steigerwald

Karl Rove retired in 2007 as President George W. Bush's 
deputy chief of staff, ace political strategist and 
mastermind of public policy. But Rove -- aka "Satan" 
to liberals and not always popular with limited-government 
conservatives, either -- is very much involved in the 
daily warfare of partisan politics. A Fox News contributor 
and a columnist for both The Wall Street Journal and 
Newsweek, he's also writing a book about his White House 
days, traveling the speakers circuit and even becoming a 
star on Twitter.com. When I spoke with him by phone on 
Tuesday, March 10, from his home in Austin, Texas, the 
58-year-old was so upbeat and friendly he began by recit-
ing lines from the Texas state song -- and even offered 
to sing it. 

Q: If President Obama got really desperate and called 
you up and said, "Mr. Rove, give me some advice about 
this economic crisis," what would you tell him?

A: I'd say, "Listen to your economic counselor when he 
said, 'Any efforts to help the economy should be target-
ed, temporary and timely.' And people respond more to 
cuts in their taxes than they do to increases in govern-
ment spending, particularly things that add to baseline 
permanent spending."

Q: How do think he's doing so far?

A: Well, he's 50 days in. He's off to a strong start 
in many respects. He's put together most of his Cabinet 
quickly. He's put together his White House staff quickly. 
He's moved aggressively on the executive order front. 
He's been helped by his secretary of State, who's hit 
the ground running. On the big challenge he faces -- 
the economy -- his grade is incomplete. But I don't 
think that he's been as effective on that front as the 
nation would hope.

The economy will recover. The America economy is just 
too big and too strong and the American worker and the 
American entrepreneur and the innovator are just simply 
too productive not for the economy to recover. But the 
question is, "Will his policies hasten that day or will 
they retard that day?" I'm afraid I'm on the side that 
says it's going to retard that day.

The Republicans in the House offered an alternative 
stimulus package that emphasized tax cuts, particularly 
for people at the bottom. The bottom two tax rates were 
cut from 10 percent to 5 percent and 15 percent to 10 
percent. And there were small business tax cuts and 
then some safety net (items) -- the extension of un-
employment insurance and the expansion of food stamps. 
They ran that through the same econometric model the 
White House developed to measure its program and found 
that for half the cost it created 50 percent more jobs. 
The administration insisted upon a pork-laden, big-
spending, expansion of government that at the end of 
the day is not going to get the oomph that our economy 
needs. It spends more in the years 2011 to 2019 than 
it does in 2009. If we're supposed to be stimulating 
the economy now, one would think that you would be 
focused on giving the economy a jolt here in the short 
run, not growing government in the out years.

Q: Are you happy to be an observer and commentator 
instead of a player?

A: Yeah. I mean, look, when you walk into the White 
House you better walk in with the understanding that 
your time there will end. It ends no later than eight 
years. I felt honored to work there nearly seven. 
You better have enough sense of yourself that you're 
not defined by the fact that you're in the White 
House or when you leave -- as you have to leave -- 
you will have a very unpleasant time. I have a fellow 
who lives around the corner from me who played a role 
in the Reagan administration. If you engage him for 
more than five minutes of conversation, he will re-
mind you of it. In a way, it's sort of sad.

Q: Are you happy with the way you are characterized 
by your political adversaries and enemies?

A: Much of my definition occurred while I was in the 
White House. If I had to define happiness or contentment 
with what other people think or seem to think -- that's 
not the way to live your life. Particularly when you 
work in the White House, how you get defined is outside 
your control. The president used to jokingly say, 
"Better you than me" when there was some ugly story. 
That's just the way it is.

Q: How do you define your personal politics?

A: Well, I'm a compassionate conservative. I believe in 
limited government. I believe in markets. I believe in a 
robust and strong defense. I believe in traditional 
values. And I believe that the conservative movement is 
best served by depicting our philosophy the way that it 
is -- which is a compassionate and optimistic and hope-
ful agenda that by emphasizing personal freedom and 
emphasizing liberty and responsibility gives people the 
best chance in life to be all they can be -- to develop 
themselves, to grow, to prosper, to seek their own path 
in life.

Q: The Bush administration is infamous among libertarians 
and old-style traditional conservatives for expanding the 
size of government, for spending so much money ..

A: Well, let me ask you that. Look, we're spending more 
on the military, no doubt about that. If a libertarian 
doesn't like that, fine; we're in a time of war and we 
need to. We're spending more on securing the homeland, 
defending our borders. We've doubled the size of the 
border patrol and tripled its budget. I make no apologies 
for that. When it comes to the discretionary domestic 
spending budget of the United States, what do you think 
our record is?

Q: It probably hasn't grown that much.

A: Well, when we came into office, it was growing a lot 
-- 16 percent in one year. That was the FY '01 budget 
left us by Bill Clinton. We cut that growth rate in our 
FY '02 budget to 7 percent and then to 4 percent in FY 
'03, to inflation by FY '05 and essentially flat-lined 
it in '06, '07 and '08. It was a hard thing to do, be-
cause not a single Democrat voted for the president's 
budget. They didn't offer an alternative budget every 
year, but they did almost every year, and those budgets
called for more spending, not less; higher taxes, not 
lower taxes; and more deficit, not less deficit.

We had to pass the budget with only Republican votes. 
Now the trade-off was that Republicans would insist on 
earmarks. We fought them every step of the way. The 
ugliest argument I had was not with a Democrat in the 
White House but with a Republican in the White House . 
yelling at me about the administration's efforts to 
rein in earmarks.

But our record on discretionary spending is good -- and 
unknown. On mandatory spending, we're the guys who 
stood up and said let's reform Social Security and let's 
reform Medicare. We're the guys who stood up and said we 
have a problem coming in entitlements and let us put 
this on the table as no other president has been willing 
to do in a comprehensive fashion, because we need to 
address this. Now did we succeed? No. But we made it 
possible for future presidents and future congresses to 
tackle a problem that absolutely must be tackled -- 
which is mandatory spending.

Q: What do you say when someone says to you that "politics 
is a dirty, rotten, slimy business and it causes all the 
problems in the country"?

A: Well, democracy is at the heart of our system. The 
"American Experiment" is based around democracy, which 
requires elections. Have elections always been pristine
and sacrosanct? No. In fact, read the rhetoric of the 
1800 campaign and you'll be shocked. It would make the 
Swift Boat veterans and Americans United for Change look 
like pansies by comparison. The things that John Adams 
said about Thomas Jefferson. Thomas Jefferson, the 
sainted Thomas Jefferson, hired a notorious libeler and 
installed him as an editor of a Democratic-Republican 
newspaper in Richmond, Virginia, to libel John Adams, 
and the things he routinely wrote in his editorial 
columns are vicious . .

American politics has always been tough and American 
politics today is in many respects less tough than it 
was before, because now, with national media and with 
the Internet and with cable TV and with network TV and 
large national newspapers covering presidential races 
with a lot of resources, it's more akin to the emperor's 
new clothes. At the end of the parade, people are going 
to see the candidates as they are -- strengths and 
weaknesses -- and hopefully see them on their better 
days and make the best decision they can. As a result, 
if you go over the top -- if you say things that people 
perceive as unfair and not appropriate to the campaign 
-- they'll discipline you by not giving you their vote.

Q: Did the Bush years damage the Republican Party and 
hurt its credibility in terms of those old-fashioned 
GOP principles -- limited government, fiscal prudence, 
etc.?

A: Look, I would say, less the Bush administration. ... 
Again, I repeat, yeah, we're spending more on the 
military. But we were the guys who ratcheted down dis-
cretionary domestic spending. We're not the guys who 
believed in earmarks. Now I understand there is always 
a tension between what Congress wants and what an 
executive wants. And I would readily concede that the 
earmarks hurt us, no ifs, ands or buts about it. But 
that wasn't the administration. "The Bridge to Nowhere" 
took all the good that we had done in ratcheting down 
discretionary spending and washed it all away, no ifs, 
ands or buts about it.

Q: Can the Republican Party regain its stature and 
power?

A: Oh absolutely. Oh absolutely.

Q: But there are some like David Frum who say the GOP
has to give up on its limited-government, small-"g" 
government attitude and become more Democrat lite.

A: Yeah, there are people who believe that -- I recog-
nize it. There are also people who would be enthusiastic 
if we did it -- namely a lot of Democrats. Remember, 
Barack Obama won in part by campaigning against some 
traditional liberal values. He emphasized he would cut 
taxes for 95 percent of Americans. He did not emphasize 
in equal measure that he would raise taxes on the top 
5 percent.

In fact, I did an interesting little study -- excuse 
me one second here while I open the garage door. He 
emphasized that he was going to cut taxes for 95 per-
cent of Americans and for every four words in a stump 
speech that he devoted to that on average he devoted 
one word to talking about raising taxes and most of 
the time his language was essentially that they would 
simply go back to where they were in the Clinton years. 
In fact, in the most-watched speech of the entire 
campaign -- his convention speech -- he talks about 
cutting taxes for 95 percent of Americans and never 
mentions one word about raising taxes. Also he didn't 
emphasize during the campaign that he was going to 
raise $600 billion in taxes by putting a tax on carbon 
-- the cap-and-trade system.

So he ran essentially on the taxes as a conservative. 
... The same with health care. You saw it in Pennsyl-
vania. The second-most-widely shown spot of the entire 
Obama campaign was a spot called "Government-run health 
care extreme." That's a pretty extreme thing to go out 
there and wang on government-run health care as extreme. 
What's the impression that's left by running 10 gazill-
ion ads on that? So my point is, even Democrats recog-
nize the strength of the limited-government theme. They 
understand that the American people -- while we are a 
practical people and while we want to get things done 
-- have a suspicion of centralized power and big govern-
ment as the vehicle to get things done.

Q: You've been demonized by the mainstream media and 
liberals in general. Is there any one criticism of you 
that rankles you the most because it is either unfair 
or wrong?

A: Well, look, nothing rankles me. Frankly, part of the 
reason that they say ugly things is to get under my skin, 
so I'm not going to let them. Let me just say this: 
There are lots of myths about me. I'm like Grendel from 
"Beowulf." I get talked about a lot but people don't 
really know who I am. I'm writing a book and I'm going 
to deal with "the myths of Rove" and all these lovely 
things people say, but I am going to do so without rancor. 
Some people don't like me -- fine. Other people in the 
press believe it is their job to take everybody and whack 
them around. I drive liberals nuts -- I understand that 
-- or some liberals nuts. I actually have good friends 
who are liberals. But I'll deal with it in my book.