Spurning criticism, Rove puts blame on Democrats

WACO, Texas — Karl Rove has been lionized and vilified, heralded as making the unlikely 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 to send the Bush presidency off track in the process.

But in an interview at an IHOP restaurant in this central Texas city, 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 recent days, blaming Democrats for the divisive tone that has dominated Bush's tenure and for which he frequently has taken the blame.

Rove said he had no regrets over what even some allies have called his greatest missteps, such as his failed efforts to pass a sweeping overhaul of the Social Security system 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.

Rove strenuously argued with the dominant characterization of him as the Oz — or, with Vice President Dick Cheney, the co-Oz — behind the curtain of Bush's White House and presidency, declaring, "I'm the facilitator," who merely has helped Bush shape his views.

At the same time, Rove described himself as an aggressive and studious inside player at the White House who remains one of the four or five officials in Bush's inner circle, but has had to work hard for the position. 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," Rove said, "it can't simply be, 'Well, he's the long-term associate of Bush from Texas' — I've got to dig in."

And even as he prepares to leave his job, Rove showed he still is very much the political maestro trying to corral his party, taking a call from Florida Sen. Mel Martinez, the Republican National Committee chairman, while waiting for a table. Rove noted afterward that Martinez had been quoted criticizing fellow Republicans on immigration — questioning the approaches of Republican presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani.

Rove said he reminded Martinez that the blame should be focused on a Democrat, namely Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, for what Rove characterized as failing to shepherd a comprehensive immigration plan the president supported. (Reid has placed blame on the White House, saying it failed to forge the necessary political consensus.)

There was one stark sign that Rove truly was leaving. He expressed what no White House aide would express publicly, though many senior officials have shared the sentiment privately: that is, distaste for the president's beloved Scottish terrier, Barney, who is seen by some as aloof and entitled. "Barney's a lump," he joked. Rove granted the interview as part of a farewell media tour as his detractors — including many Democrats but also some conservatives — dispute his legacy.

He was alternately emotional and nostalgic, clinical and unbowed, but rarely introspective. "There will be time for regrets; there will be things that I didn't do as well as I should have; there will be things that I've left undone," he said.

He only described one regret in particular: "I remember having a conversation with a colleague — I want to say not only a colleague, but a very close friend — and responding out of frustration at the end of a seemingly long, continuing dialogue that turned into an argument, and saying something unkind, and it was the worst I ever felt at the White House. I later apologized to him for it."

Asked why some former colleagues, specifically former deputy Matthew Dowd, have left Bush's inner circle in bitterness, Rove said sadly, "I don't know."

In a New York Times interview earlier this year, Dowd, who is no longer on speaking terms with Rove, had lamented that Bush's White House had not followed the style of Bush's Texas statehouse in reaching out to Democrats. And Democrats now are investigating whether Rove inappropriately pushed for the dismissal last year of several U.S. attorneys for political purposes. ("Everything was handled appropriately," Rove said.)

"The dividers, over the last six years," he said, "have been the Democrats, who have routinely said he was not elected, he's illegitimate, he's a liar, he deliberately misled the country."

Rove was asked whether harsh Republican attacks on the national-security credentials of various Democrats in 2002, orchestrated by him, added to the climate. Among advertisements that year was one from Republican candidate Saxby Chambliss. The ad called his Democratic opponent — Georgia Sen. Max Cleland, a triple-amputee Vietnam veteran — soft on defense, and flashed the menacing image of Osama Bin Laden.

"President Bush and the White House don't write the ads for Senate candidates," Rove said, calling himself "a convenient scapegoat," and blaming Democrats for their losses.

Democrats and some Republicans criticized Rove last week for what they described as a single-minded pursuit of a "durable" GOP majority, with policies aimed at stealing traditional Democratic constituencies such as Latinos or weakening Democratic bases such as unions.

"With all due respect," he said indignantly, "don't you think they would like to have a durable Democratic majority and put us as an un-durable minority?"

He said, however, that he was pursuing the president's policy wishes and not his personal grand political aims; he described a process whereby Bush laid out his policy goals early on, and Rove helped flesh them out.

Members of both parties believe Rove miscalculated in pursuing privatization of Social Security, when Bush was at a high point after his re-election but when there was little political will to get it done.

Rove said Bush had been committed to it for so long he had to pursue it, and that he had succeeded in putting it on the national agenda for the future. As Rove left the IHOP for his Waco hotel, it was evident the degree to which he had become a public figure. He twice was stopped by well-wishers who said they admired him.

Rove later sent a note: "I didn't plant the guy at the IHOP or the woman at the hotel, but it would be the subtle personal touch that the Evil Genius would do to throw you off the scent, don't you think?"