Rove rebuffs critics, blames Democrats for divisive tone Karl Rove has been lionized and vilified, heralded as making the election victories of President Bush possible and impugned as reaching too high from an unusually powerful White House perch.
In the eyes of his many detractors, he has helped send the Bush presidency off track in the process.
But in an interview at an IHOP restaurant in Waco, Texas, days after he announced his resignation as Bush’s top political adviser, Rove defiantly dismissed the rash of fresh critiques that have come his way in the past several days, blaming the Democrats for the divisive tone that has dominated Bush’s tenure and for which he has frequently taken the blame.
He said he had no regrets over what even some allies have called his greatest missteps, like trying and failing to pass an overhaul of Social Security at the start of Bush’s second term, and the degree to which he seemed to meld partisan politics and official White House policy in his dual duties as a deputy chief of staff and Bush’s top political strategist.
He argued with the characterization of him as the Wizard behind the curtain of Bush’s White House and presidency, declaring, “I’m the facilitator,” who has merely helped Bush as he has sought to shape his own views.
He dismissed what he called “the idea that I am somehow this all-powerful figure inside the White House.”
“What I’ve learned is that if I want my voice to be heard around the table,” he said, “it can’t simply be, ‘Well, he’s the long-term associate of Bush from Texas’; I’ve got to dig in.”
