WASHINGTON, 11 February 2005 — Karl Rove’s new appointment has put him officially in charge of pretty much everything at the White House, and Washingtonian observers are aflutter trying to figure out how this will affect domestic and international policy.
Rove, who orchestrated Bush’s re-election campaign, is now assistant to the president, deputy chief of staff and senior adviser.
Rove was already officially in charge of strategic planning, political affairs, liaison to outside groups and intergovernmental affairs. Now he’ll also be in charge of coordinating the policies of the National Security Council, the Domestic Policy Council, National Economic Council, and Homeland Security.
One White House aide joked: “I hope he likes to attend meetings, because he’s going to be attending a lot of them.”
Rove’s new job descriptions come without a pay raise — he was already receiving the maximum on the White House payscale, $157,000. But he does get to move from his second-floor office, which was formerly occupied by Hillary Rodham Clinton, to one just a few steps away from the Oval Office.
Rove, who is both liked and despised in Washington depending on which side of the political fence you sit, has even more nicknames than job titles. He’s been called “Bush’s guru,” “Bush’s brain,” “the man behind the curtain” and “the wizard of the West Wing.” Rove himself once joked about his reputation as the “evil Rasputin.”
Bush has also added to Rove’s aura, calling him “the architect,” “boy genius,” or “turd blossom” — the last a reference to a West Texas flower that grows in cow manure.
“Put me down saying positive things, because he’s obviously the most powerful man in Washington,” Mike McCurry, a top adviser to Sen. John Kerry’s presidential campaign and former spokesman for President Clinton, told journalists. “He very clearly is not a man you want to be on the wrong side of.”
McCurry’s lighthearted reaction reflected a general belief in the capital that Rove has unparalleled influence.
Former Bush aide John DiIulio told Esquire after he resigned in 2001 that Rove is “maybe the single-most powerful person in the modern, post-Hoover era ever to occupy a political adviser post near the Oval Office.”
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Joseph Hagin will also take on more responsibilities. He will represent White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card at the Defense Department, the Homeland Security Council, and at meetings on proliferation, counterproliferation, intelligence and counterterrorism.
