Orange County Weekly: A Karl Rove timeline

[question everything]

July 22 - 28, 2005

From Bad to Worse

A Karl Rove timeline

by JAMES RIDGEWAY

From the time he was 10 years old, Karl Rove, Bush’s closest and most important political adviser, has made a specialty of dirty tricks. If Joseph Wilson and Valerie Plame turn out to be anything but just another weird turn in Rove’s career, that would be real news. Here is the barest of chronologies of Rove’s career, compiled from various sources:

(snip)

1960: At age 10, he becomes a Republican, supporting Nixon in the race he loses to John F. Kennedy. A meanie girl who’s a Kennedy supporter beats him up.

(snip)

Fall 1969: Rove enrolls at University of Utah, some say to avoid the draft. Later attends the University of Texas and George Mason University. Never gets a degree from any of them.
Christmas 1969: Man thought to be Rove’s father walks out on his mother, but—surprise!—relatives tell Rove the guy’s not his real father.

Fall 1970: Rove pays visit to Chicago campaign headquarters of Alan Dixon, a Democrat running for state treasurer. Disguised as a volunteer, Rove steals official campaign letterhead and sends out 1,000 invitations to people in the city’s red-light district and soup kitchens, offering “free beer, free food, girls, and a good time for nothing” at Dixon headquarters. When hundreds of homeless and alcoholic Chicagoans show up at a fancy Dixon reception, Rove succeeds in embarrassing the candidate. Dixon wins anyway.

(snip)

1972: Under mentorship of dirty trickster Donald Segretti (who later went to jail for Watergate), Rove paints McGovern as “left-wing peacenik”—despite McGovern’s World War II stint piloting a B-24. Rove also works as staff assistant to George H.W. Bush, then chairman of Republican National Committee (RNC).

(snip)

1976: Rove marries Houston socialite Valerie Wainwright.

(snip)

1979: Wainwright divorces Rove.

(snip)

1984: Rove helps ex-Democrat Phil Gramm win Senate seat as Republican.
1986: Rove marries Darby Hickson, a graphic designer for his company. Advises Bill Clement in his tight but successful Texas gubernatorial race.
1988: Rove hits on “tort reform” as winning issue for Republicans. His candidates win five out of six open seats on the Texas Supreme Court.

(snip)

2000: Rove is at heart of Bush’s vicious smear job on John McCain in South Carolina primary: Thinly disguised Bush surrogates claim McCain was a stoolie while a POW. Rove also credited with spreading rumor that McCain’s adopted Bangladeshi daughter is black and illegitimate and his wife a drug addict.

(snip)

http://www.ocweekly.com/ink/05/46/news-ridgeway.php

[Jane Austin]

1. Don't forget the smear job he did on Ann Richards in '94.

She had a 70% approval rating as Texas Governor before Rove went to work on her.

And then there was the time he bugged his own office and reported it to try to make sitting Governor Mark White look bad at the Gubernatorial debate the next day.

And, anybody care to wager who planted the bush debate practice tape in Gore's office? (Gore wisely turned it over to the authorities as soon as it turned up.)

That caper has Rove's stamp all over it.

[nascarblue]

2. Never heard about the Bush tape planted at Gore's NT

[Jane Austin]

3. It was right before one of the debates in the 2000 campaign.

A videotape of bush practicing for the debate was sent to one of Gore's campaign advisors.

The advisor turned it over to the FBI.

http://digbig.com/4ebfh