Karl "John McCain's Illegitimate Black Baby" Rove: I did not pull dirty tricks

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Karl Rove: I did not pull dirty tricks

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/35728837/ns/today-today_people

By Mike Celizic
TODAYshow.com contributor
updated 5:10 a.m. PT, Mon., March. 8, 2010

Karl Rove said his reputation as a down-and-dirty political campaigner is undeserved. Tricks attributed to him were either media distortions or the work of others, he told TODAY’s Matt Lauer during an interview Monday on TODAY.

Rove specifically said he had nothing to do with the smear tactics used against Sen. John McCain in South Carolina during the 2000 Republican presidential primary campaign.

During a two-day interview with TODAY’s Matt Lauer, the former senior advisor to President George W. Bush insisted he is not a negative campaigner. But Rove grew emotional when he talked about his mother, who committed suicide when he was 30 — possibly, it has been alleged, because Rove’s father may have been gay.

Rove defended himself by saying that the American public cannot possibly be so stupid as to buy into the lies associated with negative campaigns.