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Since
the topsy-turvy election of 2000, many Americans have puzzled
over the question: If George W. Bush is as dumb as he sometimes
appears to be, how did he ever become President? Though the
2004 documentary �Bush�s Brain� might not necessarily have the
answer, it certainly provides an
answer, and a pretty substantial one.
Based
on the book by James C. Moore and Wayne Slater, Bush�s Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W.
Bush Presidential, and made with their avid cooperation,
�Bush�s Brain� is a portrait of Karl Rove, the political consultant
behind Bush�s election who apparently has become as heavily
involved in Bush administration policymaking�international perhaps
even more than domestic�as he was with politicking. Compared
to �Fahrenheit 9/11,� the film is fairly restrained in its presentation
of a story that is frightening enough in its factual details.
The
authors are clearly critical of their subject. (That the film
was being marketed on DVD less than two months after its quiet
initial release on four screens on Aug.
22, 2004 is a clear sign the filmmakers are looking
to make a political impact, too.) Early in the movie, University
of Texas scholar
Bruce Buchanan calls Rove an exponent of the �junkyard dog style
of politics,� and Slater (who is the Austin
bureau chief for the Dallas Morning News; Moore
is an Emmy-winning TV correspondent) says �If Karl Rove is involved,
you�re gonna be hurt.� But they also have a healthy respect
for him. Moore calls
Rove �intelligent, gracious, humble,� and adds that he�s �so
bright, and he knows so much about American history.�
The
story is framed by use of a Jan. 15, 2003 letter that Rove faxed to Slater in
order to dispute many of the contentions in the book. Though
Rove is normally careful to avoid the media spotlight, he�s
clearly very aware of any exposure and anxious to exert damage
control. Apparently he did his best to block the production
of the film: co-director Michael Shoob has told
the press that although the filmmakers made appointments to
talk with various Republicans, most of them were canceled at
the last minute�probably under pressure from Rove. They have
an actor read critical portions of Rove�s 2003 letter aloud
so they can bounce off their evidence against them.
The
overall picture is of a man who has to win at any cost, yet
somehow manages to maintain sufficient distance from the dirty
deeds to assert his innocence. This also keeps his clients largely
out of the muck. Four principal races are discussed:
1.
The 1986 Texas gubernatorial campaign in which Rove worked for
Republican challenger Bill Clements, and against Democratic
incumbent Mark White
2.
The 1990 campaign for Texas Agricultural Commissioner, where
Rove represented Rick Perry (later Governor of Texas) against
Jim Hightower
3.
The 1994 Texas
gubernatorial race, when George W. Bush went up against Ann
Richards, an incumbent neither he nor his mother Barbara thought
he could beat
4.
The 2000 national election
In
1986, Clements was steadily losing what had been a 35-point
lead in the polls. Rove called a press conference in October
to declare that he had found a bug in his office, and charged
the White campaign with planting it. John Weaver, vice-chair
of the Clements campaign, tells the camera he was initially
�euphoric,� but then �It began to look fishy to us.� An FBI
report said that judging by its battery use, the bug had been
in the wall just 15 minutes when it was �discovered,� and today
Weaver says he doesn�t think White had anything to do with it.
Glenn
Smith, a journalist with the Houston Post and probably Rove�s harshest critic in the film, comments:
�I like to say I play hardball, but I would never consider planting
a bug in my own office and blaming it on my opponent.�
Perhaps
the most significant damage Rove may have engineered against
an opponent was to destroy members of Hightower�s team via the
courts. An FBI agent started investigations of every Democratic
officeholder in the state in 1990. The investigator just happened
to be the same FBI man who had looked into the �bugging� incident
in Rove�s office in 1986, Greg Rampton. Rampton�s investigation
managed to nail Texas
agricultural commissioner Mike Moeller and senior administrator
Pete McRae for soliciting contributions for Hightower.
Glenn
Smith comments that �that probably only happens, accidentally,
a thousand times a day� in Texas.
Says nationally syndicated columnist Molly Ivins, �There was
too much zeal in that case; it smelled rankly from the beginning.�
But it resulted in huge fines, jail time, and the end of their
elective careers for Moeller and McRae. The general counsel
for the Texas Agricultural Commission said he almost cried to
see these good public servants get destroyed, basically in the
course of a political maneuver. The consultants who actually
solicited funds were excused from prosecution for age and ill
health. The man who benefited most from this confusion, Rick
Perry, was elected agricultural commissioner, and eventually
ascended to the governor�s mansion in 2001 when Bush left for
Washington.
Rove
also seems to favor insidious whisper campaigns that have nothing
to do with the issues, truth, or fairness. In the 1994 gubernatorial
race that George W. ostensibly had no chance of winning (yet
eventually won), rumors turned Richards�s inclusiveness into possible �homosexual
appointments,� and accused her of �lesbianism.� In 2000, after
Senator John McCain of Arizona
whipped Bush in the New Hampshire
primary, Rove�s team went to work in the next significant primary
race, which was South Carolina.
The McCains had adopted a mixed-race child from Bangladesh
via Mother Theresa�s orphanage, but rumors circulated about
a �black daughter,� maybe by a prostitute, and radio talk shows
buzzed with the phrase �black love-child.�
It
was probably the most infamous use of what came to be known
as �push polling.� Campaign staffers called voters and pretended
to be pollsters, asking questions that planted huge doubts but
had nothing to do with substantive issues, or even the truth,
such as �What do you think of the rumors that McCain has a black
love-child?� Unattributed flyers blossomed on car windshields
in church parking lots. There was also buzz about McCain being
�a little off,� perhaps as a result of spending all those years
in a Hanoi POW camp. As Ivins observes, �If you�ve ever covered
a Rove campaign in East Texas, it was
just textbook.�
John
Weaver, formerly a coworker of Rove�s in the 1986 Texas governor�s
race, was now director of McCain�s campaign�it was �the proudest
thing I�ve ever been involved in,� he tells the camera�and found
himself opposite the junkyard dog. Fighting Rove �was akin to
a thousand tomahawks coming at you� he says; you can only �fend
off two or three.�
Aside
from the four campaigns cited above, �Bush�s Brain� also notes
Rove�s involvement in some other shenanigans, such as the 1994
defeat of Georgia senator Max Cleland, a veteran who left two
legs and an arm in Vietnam. A $14 million campaign against Cleland
included TV ads that placed him next to Saddam Hussein and Osama
bin Laden based on his votes in Congress. �It was just character
assassination,� his campaign manager says; �I don�t know how
they can sleep at night.� Cleland is perhaps the best-known
participant in the documentary with a personal grudge against
Rove, yet he somehow manages to state his case with good humor
and even a steady smile.
Rove
is also suspected of outing diplomat Joseph Wilson�s wife as
a CIA agent by leaking the story to columnist Robert Novak as
punishment for Wilson�s
opposition to the story the administration tried to peddle that
al-Qaida was trying to buy uranium from Nigeria.
Bush�s team hustled this tale at the United Nations, but Wilson�s
investigation found no basis for it. The exposure of his wife�s
name in the press when she had no diplomatic protection was
�an absolute disaster,� Cleland says. �That
is actually a federal crime� under a law pushed by George H.W.
Bush. �It is also a breach of national security.�
Wilson
tells the filmmakers he can�t prove that Rove was behind the
leak, but he knows Rove was pushing the story. One of the many
ironies in this film is the fact that Rove was fired by the
Reagan-Bush campaign in 1980 for leaking something to Novak,
so the two go back a long way. To top it off, Rove attends services
at the same Episcopal church as the
CIA operative he allegedly so casually exposed!
�Bush�s
Brain� offers small juicy tidbits along the way, such as Rove�s
undermining of a former mentor, Robert Edgeworth, way back in
1973 to beat him out for chair of the Young Republicans. There�s
also Rove�s 1973 assignment of handing young W. the family car
keys so he could raise hell in D.C. Perhaps most bracing in
its implications is footage of Rove giving a rare speech to
the Republican National Committee winter meeting on Jan. 18, 2002, in which he basically
says the war in Iraq
is a great campaign tool.
�He
had taken the war and made it into a marketing device,� says
Moore. It�s going
to cost lives and money, Rove told his compatriots, ��and we
can run on it� . . . as if this wraps you in a bulletproof shield
from political attack.� The policy Rove wants to pursue is pure
politics, Slater adds. As if everything the President chooses
to do, from domestic economic policy to war overseas, is nothing
more than part of a reelection strategy.
Like
�Fahrenheit 9/11,� �Bush�s Brain� tries to personalize the human
cost of these policies by looking in on the lives affected by
the death of one soldier in Iraq.
Fred Pokorney, an adopted child from Tonopah,
Nevada, was a second lieutenant
in the Marines when he was killed on March 23, 2003�the fourth day of the
war in Iraq.
Although his young wife and father do not fall into the sort
of throat-clutching histrionics that Michael Moore got out of
Lila Lipscomb, the fact that Wade Lieseke is himself a Vietnam
vet and his quiet firmness make as strong a case against the
Bush administration�s war policy as anything in the more famous
film.
�When
you go to war, you do it so your kids won�t have to,� says Lieseke.
�I don�t believe these elitist people give a damn what happens
to these people . . . and the people they leave behind.� In
one of their strongest editorial ploys, the filmmakers cut to
Rove at the lectern, declaring �We
hold at the core of our Republican beliefs that every individual
matters.� (This was too much for the mostly quiet and attentive
audience at the screening I attended: �Bullshit!� one man yelled
at the screen.)
By
its conclusion, the movie has solidly made the point that seems
redundant as it is offered by Gary Mauro, a former Texas Land
Commissioner who ran against Bush for governor in 1998: �What�s
dangerous about Karl Rove is that there is no rule he won�t
break, if he thinks it will help his candidate.�
As
a piece of filmmaking, �Bush�s Brain� is fairly pedestrian:
it lacks the verve of Moore�s
film or the calm elegance of �Control Room.� Its makers don�t
give the viewer much more beyond a series of talking heads,
with an occasional TV clip here and there. Fortunately, the
subject is inherently gripping.
Let
us hope that even if millions of American voters don�t see this
film before the general election in November, at least Kerry
and his team will have seen it so they�ll know what they�re
up against. Nobody should be surprised if, say, Rove comes up
with some sort of �October Surprise��whether the capture or
sighting of bin Laden, or suddenly heightened tensions with
Iran�that will make it appear that the United States cannot
survive unless his client stays in the White House.
David
Loftus
[email protected]
Credits
Joseph
Mealey, Michael Paradies Shoob� � Directors and Producers
Elizabeth
Reeder � Co-Producer
Joseph
Mealey � Cinematography
James
C. Moore and Wayne Slater� � Writers (authors of book )
James
Vroom � Narration
Michelle
Shocked � Music
2004,
80 minutes
Official
Site
http://www.bushsbrain.com/
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