Rove: Bush Among ‘Consequential Presidents’; Judgments Will ‘Soften and Grow’
EmailABC News’ Aaron Katersky reports: The architect of George W. Bush’s presidency today compared his former boss to Harry Truman, whose tenure in office was appreciated far more by the public with the passage of decades.
“That’s what happens to consequential presidents. In the heat of the moment we make judgments about them, and over time people’s judgments soften and grow,” Rove told ABC News Radio.
“People are starting to revise and revisit their positions on George W. Bush,” he said.
Rove is promoting his memoir “Courage and Consequence,” a book he said former President Bush has read. He said he trades e-mails with the former president daily.
Not surprisingly, Rove predicts “substantial gains” by the Republican Party in the 2010 midterm congressional elections, though he stopped short of forecasting a GOP takeover of either the House or the Senate.
“The disenchantment of the Democratic leadership is substantial,” Rove said. “We’re likely to see at the end of this election the Republicans making substantial gains in the House and the Senate.”
Rove predicted the GOP will control 48 Senate seats after the election, up from their current total of 41. He says the Republicans are poised to retake control of the Senate in 2012, though he said the political dynamics could shift if the GOP fares well this year.
“It could be the best thing for President Obama if the Republicans get close or win one house and not win both, because then he would be forced back to the center and do some of the things that he talked about during the campaign,” Rove said.
Obama: 'Now Is the Time For Common Sense Action' 
Romney Takes Aim at Conservatives
That is, after the cons finish rewriting history.
Posted by: JR | March 10, 2010, 11:49 am 11:49 am
Is the headline a dirty joke, OR just an invitation to a dirty joke? You be the judge…
Posted by: jafo | March 10, 2010, 11:52 am 11:52 am
And Rove has credibility? LOL !!!!!!
Posted by: spacerook1 | March 10, 2010, 12:10 pm 12:10 pm
This guy should be in prison along with President Cheney and Bush! But President Obama saw to it that that didn’t happen……. yet you all still rag on him. Why??
Posted by: Bart | March 10, 2010, 12:12 pm 12:12 pm
All Rove is doing is a “vain” attempt to rewrite history so that he is not “tarnished” for all time, just like our former President will be. And the “funny part” to this story is that nobody knows how Iraq will ever turn out. And “however it does” there will alwys be “subjective, divided opinions” subject to “interpretation. The facts “W” and Rve And Cheney can never “run away” from is the number of “dead” and the “drastically altered lives of the injured, physically and mentally – on both sides of the conflict.
Posted by: CND FOX | March 10, 2010, 12:35 pm 12:35 pm
Yes, Bush WAS a “consequential” president. But consequential does not equal “good”.
Posted by: dudley doright | March 10, 2010, 12:43 pm 12:43 pm
Just like any president, Bush did things some people did not like. Nothing different about that. But according to some Obama is perfect and all his trouble are not his fault. Let’s face it politicians lie. And to CND FOX Democrats were on the war bandwagon too. They really cannot say that they did not have all the facts. If that is true then they really are as dumb as the American public thinks they are.
Posted by: mj | March 10, 2010, 1:12 pm 1:12 pm
No mj, Obama is hardly perfect. You guys are the ones trying to say people think that. To suggest Bush did a few things people didn’t like is an understatement when you’re talking a several year war and many dying over it. Then there’s the love of tax cuts that are jacking up this deficit currently, and spending. Their love of de-regulation doesn’t seem to work well either. Hence we sit in a nasty recession. Rove might think all will be forgiven, but I’m pretty sure I’ll die knowing he was the worst in my lifetime. Of course it wasn’t him. It was Cheney.
Posted by: Secondlook | March 10, 2010, 1:17 pm 1:17 pm
mj…and I guess if you believe that type of argument, then I guess you are always on the side of the “liars” who create the lie. Is that what I hear you saying? I just haoppened to “live” through this same time period you did. But maybe I paid better attention as to how “secretive” the past admioistration was. You should be “outraged” at those who perpetrated the “lie”, not those who “believed” it.
Posted by: CND FOX | March 10, 2010, 1:18 pm 1:18 pm
The worst thing about Dubya, was that he allowed his religion to influence his policy and decisions, even when that basically disenfranchised citizens.
That was the primary issue, that wasn’t acceptable.
Posted by: Rick McDaniel | March 10, 2010, 1:23 pm 1:23 pm
Rick…If you believe that “Dubya” was religious, then I have a bridge in Brooklyn I’d like to sell you. That was just a show to buy votes from the “religious” right. And unfortunately, that type of strategy always seems to work.
Posted by: CND FOX | March 10, 2010, 1:32 pm 1:32 pm
Obama and his liberal cronies based the entire 2008 campaign on lies. How’s that “hopey-changey” stuff working out for you? They made promises and pledges that were not kept. I miss President Bush. He was a true, patriotic American. He did not go to foreign countries and apologize for America. He never bowed down to a foreign leader. God Bless America!
Posted by: Proud American | March 10, 2010, 4:55 pm 4:55 pm
Bush will be judged a “consequential president”? James Buchannan was also a consequential president. Because of his inaction during the South’s march to Civil War this country lost over 600,000 killed. I guess George Bush’s apologists can claim he only lost 4,200 killed (Iraq)….sadly in a totally unnecessary pre-emptive war against the wrong country and for the wrong reasons (WMD’s) Bush a consequential president? ……sadly, true.
Posted by: A. Lincoln | March 10, 2010, 8:15 pm 8:15 pm
The only person who missed George Bush is the Iraqi fellow who threw his shoe at him.
Otherwise…… Happy Trails Dubya.
Posted by: A.Lincoln | March 10, 2010, 8:18 pm 8:18 pm
Karl Rove complains in his new book that some media have asked him if his father was Gay. Rove strongly objects, stating that going after one’s family is below the belt…….
2000 Election… Rove engineers the smear campaign against Republican rival John McCain with robo-calls to South Carolina residents..”do you mind that John McCain has a black child out of wedlock?”…(he adopted a child from Bangladesh)
2005 Rove engineers revenge attacks (with Scooter Libby) against Joe Wilson’s wife Valerie Plame, ruining her career with the CIA.
So attacking one’s family is unfair Mr. Rove? Really?
Posted by: A.Lincoln | March 10, 2010, 8:28 pm 8:28 pm
To all the bleeding heart liberals out there, do you really think that the best country that civilization has ever seen was built with leaders like Obama. America has lifted more people out of poverty not only here but around the world. This CLOWN of a President is going to take down this great nation the same way as Reagan took down the Soviet Union, Obama is going to bankrupt America.
Posted by: paulyfist | March 10, 2010, 9:37 pm 9:37 pm
mj posted “And to CND FOX Democrats were on the war bandwagon too.” 40% of the Democrats in Congress voted for the invasion, 98% of Republicans voted for the invasion. And when the war started going badly, most of the Democrats went back on the opinions and blamed Bush. See what happens when Congress doesn’t follow the Constitution and declare war.
Posted by: Faurtz8 | March 10, 2010, 11:44 pm 11:44 pm
the election was stolen from the American people by a fraud. Jeb Bush guaranteed that his brother would win the election “fair and square.” Sure I and I am selling the Brooklyn bridge for a dollar. These men are no better than common street thugs. The only difference is they wear nicer suits. President Bush was not an intellectual. Anyone could clear see that. He took his orders from his Saudi overlords. It is the United States of Saudi Arabia. I like how president Bush raced over there and made sure that Osama was in good hands when he arrived-oh, you did not know that Osama is in Saudi Arabia. Yes, he is a member of the Royal family. He is staying in a really nice place. Being close to seven feet tall and on kidney dialysis it would not be too hard to spot him. The machine is really quit large so my guess is the family got him back to Saudi Arabia and told him to stay hid. He is there and everyone knows it.
We have been lied to again. For what so that we could go and declare an illegal war on Iraq to steal their oil? Yes, because that is exactly what happened. It was funny that right after 911 every plane was grounded including the former President George Bush SR. He and Barbra had to wait it out while at the same time the 23 members of the Bid Laden family were whisked away back to Saudi Arabia. 18 of the 19 hijackers are from Saudi Arabia. We have been lied to so many times these idiots do not know how to tell the truth. They have become experts as spin doctoring. Why tell the truth when a lie is so much better. The problem is with that mentality people are dying. Close to 5,000 members of the military have been killed in an illegal war. More than 600 thousand Iraqis have been murdered including the assassination of their leader. All for oil. Oil that we use to take our useless fat petulant kids to school in their tank called a Hummer. The blood of these soldiers is on their hands.
Posted by: Roy West | March 10, 2010, 11:50 pm 11:50 pm
I wish that I could apologize to the Iraqi people. Not all Americans are thugs. It was wrong for us to invade your country under false pretense to steal your oil. We killed many thousands of your innocent people. There is no excuse for our behavior. It is sick and wrong. I can not say that I am sorry enough. Your people were the cradle of civilization at one time. You are a great and honorable people. I am truly sorry for our greed, arrogance and pure stupidity. I am ashamed that we let big oil control the White House. I know that you will never be whole again. Please understand that it is not the American people. We have no beef with the Iraqi people. We have no control over the lobby of big oil with billions of dollars to steal elections for incompetent idiots who do what ever they tell him to do. Again, I am sorry for this crimes against the people of Iraq and humanity.
Posted by: Roy West | March 10, 2010, 11:56 pm 11:56 pm
I am a bleeding heart liberal and you are right. We should stop giving 18 billion a year to big oil companies. We should demand AIG return the 138 billion US tax dollars. We should demand that Bank of America return their 134 billion dollars. Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac must return their 344 billion. You get the picture.
Posted by: Roy West | March 11, 2010, 12:01 am 12:01 am
I like these clowns who listen to Fox noise and repeat their talking points verbatim. They do not have a brain of their own so they steal their material. That is right Bill Oriely is nothing more than a blathering idiot. Rush Limbaugh is no better with his virulent racist comments designed to incite people. They talk of this invisible energy.
Posted by: Roy West | March 11, 2010, 12:06 am 12:06 am
“The architect of George W. Bush’s presidency “—uh huh. doesn’t that explain it all. Who wants to be known as the architech of a building that fell down and killed 4000 people, caused a major war nobody needed and put the entire world into a massize global recession that easily coudl ahve been the next great depression had the moron not left office. Backpeddle as fast as you little fat body can go, it wont change the facts. Bush walked into a peaceful world with a booming economy and a budget surplus and left 8 years later with two wars spiraling out of control, a budget deficit in the trillions, infrastructure crumbling, college attendance down, and a stockmarket that had lost half it’s value.
Posted by: seriously | March 11, 2010, 3:13 pm 3:13 pm
Should there not be a war crimes tribunal right about now for these clowns.
They squandered our treasures both human and financial, and now they bask in the glory of retirement while America attempts to climb out of the abyss they created.
Posted by: Ray Acevedo-Flores | March 11, 2010, 3:47 pm 3:47 pm
Bush would of resolved the unemployment issue and we would be on our wayback to recovery already! remember afetr 9/11 what happened to our economy. He brought us out of the funk we we’re in.
That’s all.
Sorry LWL
Posted by: alan | March 11, 2010, 7:56 pm 7:56 pm
There is no doubt that Bush will be considered a consequential President, but not in the way Rove thinks.
Posted by: BachisBest | March 12, 2010, 8:51 am 8:51 am
Right now Bush is about a 2 to a 3/10, somewhere around “political moron”, by a good portion of the nation. In about 15-20 years when he gets starts to get real critiques on his place in history I predict he’ll be seen as a 5.5-6/10.
Bottom line: he could have been worse.
Posted by: bobtherepublican | March 12, 2010, 9:44 am 9:44 am