Atwater's Heir

In the bizarro world of modern Republican/neo-conservative politics, it is understandable why someone like Rove partners with Bush. Rove is the modern incarnation of Lee Atwater, attack dog for Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush aka Bush I.

From the NY Times, an unusual call for Rove's head: The Rovian Era

excerpts:

1. "Turn over a scandal in Washington these days and the chances are you’ll find Karl Rove. His tracks are everywhere..."

2. "But Congress should bring equal scrutiny to the more powerful Mr. Rove. If it does, especially by forcing him to testify in public, it will find that he has been at the vortex of many of the biggest issues they are now investigating."

3. "After his re-election in 2004, President Bush formally put Mr. Rove in charge of all domestic policy."

Curiously that "domestic policy" is but a single theme, to feverishly work to ensconce the Republican Party as the only political party. The 2006 election was only an abberation. This is the basis of the Attorney General fires Federal attorneys scandal. Bush has less than 2 years to go, each day becomes more and more precious to this administration to relentlessly gather more and more power using all tactics with apparently illegal and dirty being just fine.

The following large excerpt is from Green Institute. Its a little bit of the history between Atwater and Rove.

"Lee Atwater recanted his attack political legacy as he was dying from brain cancer. He had been “the hitman” for the Reagan-Bush team and shaped how politics was practiced. In college in Texas he managed a campaign for Karl Rove against Terry Dolan, who went on to become one of the ‘inventors’ of soft money campaigning, creating a veritable politics-for-payola bartering system, and forming the National Conservative Political Action Committee before he died of AIDS in 1986. (note: no comment on the familiar theme of a gay ultra conservative) Dolan and Rove became close allies of Charlie Black, Paul Manafort and Roger Stone who, in direct succession to Spencer-Roberts worked for Reagan in the 1970s, became the chief public PR/political consulting firm in Reagan's 1984 presidential campaign."

"Atwater joined Black, Manafort and Stone after the 1984 election and with Dwight Chapin and another of Nixon’s dirty tricksters, Fred Malek, were key in directing the 1988 Bush-Quayle campaign. In 1980, Karl Rove had been the first person George H.W. Bush hired for his presidential campaign. At the time, Atwater was chairman of the Republican National Committee and with Rove as intermediary became one of Bush's closest political advisors. In 1981, after Bush became Ronald Reagan's vice president, Rove had set up his own political consulting firm, Karl Rove & Co. His initial client was Bill Clements, the first Republican in a century to become Texas governor. In 1984, Rove shaped the far-right campaign of Texan Phil Gramm, who defeated Democrat Lloyd Doggett in the race for U.S. Senate. He sank his teeth into the Reagan-Bush direct mail campaign and made a name on the national scene, while his hard charging political stratagem for Texas was successfully turning the Democratic state into a Republican bastion. Rove became George W. Bush strategist when he announced his candidacy for Governor in November 1993. By the end of January 1994, Bush had spent $613,930 on the race against Governor Ann Richards. Over half, $340,579, went to Karl Rove."

"Rove’s influence in Texas politics and political muscle is the stuff of Texas legend. In a state that had been dominated by Democrats, mostly right-wing ones, the Rove-led Republican stampede captured of every statewide elected office by 1999 and a Texas-size helping of state legislative seats and ‘law and order’ judgeships. As Governor, George Bush went on to prove his law and order bent by signing more execution orders than any governor in US history, making Texas the ‘death penalty’ capitol of the nation. The governor’s tenure is not open for public review, however. His papers have been deposited under seal in the Texas library of George H.W. Bush."