David Greenberg, writing in the New York Times, under the headline "In Nixon’s Tricks, Rove’s Roots and a Blueprint for Bush", reveals something about Karl Rove, that shadowy man said to be "behind" George Bush and orchestrating things for Bush together with Dick Cheney. It would seem that the "lesson" of criminality of the Nixon White House learned by Rove at that time has been taken with him to the Bush White House. That the man is unscrupulous seems to be beyond question.
Greenberg deals with parellels between the Nixon an Bush White Houses and the goes on to say:
"Interesting as the parallels are, however, the Nixon presidency matters to the Bush presidency less as an analogue than as history. Nixon’s was not simply a species of presidency similar to Bush’s but was the soil from which the Bush presidency grew. Rove’s dirty tricks matter, in other words, because they establish a direct lineage between the anything-goes mentality of the Nixon White House and the hardball of the Bush administration.
It’s been widely reported, for example, that Rove’s mentors in the College Republicans during the Nixon years included dirty-tricks maestros Lee Atwater and Donald Segretti. Newspapers have also reported that in 1970 Rove sneaked into the campaign headquarters of a Democratic candidate for state office in Illinois, filched campaign letterhead, and sent out fake fliers aiming to discredit the Democrat. In my own research on Nixon, I discovered that during Watergate itself, Rove used a phony grassroots organization to try to rally Americans to the president’s defense against what he called “the lynch-mob atmosphere created” by “the Nixon-hating media.” And according to Nixon’s former counsel John Dean, the Watergate prosecutor’s office took an interest in Rove’s underhanded activities before deciding “they had bigger fish to fry.”
Greenberg deals with parellels between the Nixon an Bush White Houses and the goes on to say:
"Interesting as the parallels are, however, the Nixon presidency matters to the Bush presidency less as an analogue than as history. Nixon’s was not simply a species of presidency similar to Bush’s but was the soil from which the Bush presidency grew. Rove’s dirty tricks matter, in other words, because they establish a direct lineage between the anything-goes mentality of the Nixon White House and the hardball of the Bush administration.
It’s been widely reported, for example, that Rove’s mentors in the College Republicans during the Nixon years included dirty-tricks maestros Lee Atwater and Donald Segretti. Newspapers have also reported that in 1970 Rove sneaked into the campaign headquarters of a Democratic candidate for state office in Illinois, filched campaign letterhead, and sent out fake fliers aiming to discredit the Democrat. In my own research on Nixon, I discovered that during Watergate itself, Rove used a phony grassroots organization to try to rally Americans to the president’s defense against what he called “the lynch-mob atmosphere created” by “the Nixon-hating media.” And according to Nixon’s former counsel John Dean, the Watergate prosecutor’s office took an interest in Rove’s underhanded activities before deciding “they had bigger fish to fry.”
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