‘The whole concept, and it works in all of his campaigns, is the candidate or the officeholder takes the high road -- talks policy, talks moral clarity, and honor, and principle -- while the operative does all the dirty work down in the ditch, and splashes the mud, and spreads the scurrilous smears and rumors and whisper campaigns that have the desired political effect to keep the candidate elected.’ – from an interview with Jim Moore

At last! A film about a spin-doctor. Well, not quite. Karl Rove is the US Alasdair Campbell (or Alasdair Campbell is the UK Karl Rove – I haven’t decided yet). This biopic of him has a few pertinent points but fails to convince in the way it sets out to. 

It starts out stating that Karl Rove is effectively the Vice-President of the US, which is a bold claim to begin with. It is fair to say that Rove holds a seat at the top table in the administration but the film attempts to infer that Rove holds almost all the cards and misses out Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Rice et al. It even to some extent misses out Bush.

It hardly comes as a shock that a spin-doctor is willing to sink low in order to win an election. This film tries to pretend that it is. There is a sense of something personal about the way the authors of the book ‘Bush’s Brain: How Karl Rove Made George Bush Presidential’, Wayne Slater and Jim Moore, attack Rove. They have been tracking him through many of his campaigns for years. Not that enmity toward spin doctors is a bad thing its just that this film does not make a particularly good fist of it. There should have been a look at the position of spin-doctors in political campaigns in general but it is not a ‘big picture’ film. Its main problem is that it tries to be a ‘big picture’ film in parts.

Early on there is a memo Rove sent in 1986….

‘The whole art of war consists in a well-reasoned and extremely circumspect defence, followed by a rapid and audacious attack.’

Rove was quoting Napoleon - which tells a story all of its own. The best parts of the film are the specific allegations of dirty tricks that have followed Rove throughout his career. In one featured Rove campaign (not involving Bush) the film implies that in order to tip the balance of a gubernatorial election Rove bugged the republican offices then called in the FBI to investigate, claiming that the democrats were responsible. The resulting investigation found that the battery had only been used for 15 minutes meaning that it must have been switched on shortly before it was found. In other campaigns there are whispering campaigns, examples being that Ann Richards was a lesbian and that John McCain (a Republican standing against Bush for the Presidential nomination) had had a tough war (in Vietnam) and that his wartime experiences had affected his sanity.

It has become normal to smear an electoral opponent by exploiting their weaknesses. Rove campaigns do this but also they attack on ‘the hot button’ i.e. attacking people where they are perceived to be strongest such as attacking John Kerry over his military record. In other words, full-on attack on all fronts.  Again, this is not a revelation.

There are further accusations of unhealthily close relationships with certain journalists, FBI agents and phone tapping. In March 1991 his answer to Senator Glasgow’s question ‘How long have you know an agent by the name of Greg Rampton?’ Rove was nearly a decade ahead of Bill Clinton’s most ridiculous statement during the Monica Lewinsky sideshow (‘it depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is’) Rove replied ‘Ah, Senator it depends. Could you define ‘know’ for me?’

The section at the end about the Iraq war seems tacked on and not really relevant to the rest of the film. Its almost like they are trying to say that the problems with the US and its policies are all down to Karl Rove – including the war. There is an implication that the war was started as a marketing device to help Bush’s reelection. There may be a truthful element in this but it is surely not the real or paramount reason.

‘The White House operatives have now taken the war in Iraq –- Karl has -– and they have made it into the defining context of the Bush presidency. Coming next is that they will take both of these things –- the economy and the war against terrorism –- and they will bundle it up into one package.’ Jim Moore.

‘Bush’s Brain’ is probably worth watching from the point of view of learning and deconstructing some of the dirty tricks but it is by no means a bombshell.

Added: April 5th 2005
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