Rove: Seeds Of Destruction From Seeds Of His Success

Everybody’s talking about Rove. Did he leak the CIA operative’s name? Did he commit treason? Is he a good guy or a bad guy? Is he really Bush’s brain? Or is he an extremely able, barely-within-the-law political genius?

Certainly his decades of political successes are evidence of his political astuteness. Yet many of them also seem to carry a scent of duplicity, an ability to leak information that ultimately plays a great role in his wins. Has it all finally caught up with him? Have the seeds of his demise been sown with the seeds of his success?

Obsessed with politics, 1969: During a political campaign, Rove enters the offices of a Democratic candidate for state treasurer, steals stationery, creates fake invitations advertising "free beer, free food, girls and a good time for nothing," to be held at the same time the candidates’ headquarters were to open. Rove distributes the invitations where free made the most sense: soup kitchens, homeless gatherings, hippie communes, and concerts.

The 1986 Texas governor’s race: Rove’s Republican candidate, Bill Clements, and the Democratic opponent, Mark White, were in a heated, but neck-and-neck race. Rove announced he had found an electronic listening device in his office, and cried foul, pointing fingers at White – who later lost the election.

The 1994 Texas governor’s race: Rove was pushing Bush. Ann Richardson was the incumbent. Near the end of the campaign, pollsters began calling likely voters, asking, “Would you be more or less likely to vote for Governor Richards if you knew her staff is dominated by lesbians?"

Destroying messengers, 1999: St. Martin’s Press publishes a book alleging that Bush was arrested on cocaine charges, but had his record expunged in exchange for community service. Rove, who is reported to have leaked that tidbit to the book’s author, then proceeded to let the media know that the author was an ex-con, and the publishers pulled the book.

Presidential campaign, 2000: The Gore team receives a tape of Bush prepping for a debate. Rove accuses the opposition of secretly taping that preparation. Later, an employee of a Bush advisor admitted to giving the Gore team the tape.

WMD fiasco, 2003: Rove reportedly considered Ambassador Joe Wilson’s wife “fair game” since Wilson, after his trip to investigate whether Iraq tried to buy uranium in Nigeria, said he found no evidence to support the idea. Yet the Bush team continued claiming that WMD existed, thus establishing that it knew its pre-war claims about Iraqi WMD were false.

Now with the administration saying nothing about Rove’s involvement in the outing of the CIA agent, one must wonder whether the master leaker has finally overstepped legal boundaries.

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Written in conjunction with Jennifer Hicks.