Rove's "confidence buoyed everyone... especially the president"

[rainbow4321]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15675318/site/newsweek

But even Rove's optimism finally cracked when he took a gloomy call from an old friend working for Rep. Clay Shaw in Florida. Shaw won re-election two years ago by a 28-point margin; last week he was heading to a four-point defeat. At 11:01 p.m., Rove made the long walk to the residence. "We're losing the House," he told Bush. The president let out a long sigh and went to bed.

<snip>

His confidence buoyed everyone inside the West Wing, especially the president. Ten days before the elections, House Majority Leader John Boehner visited Bush in the Oval Office with bad news. He told Bush that the party would lose Tom DeLay's old seat in Texas, where Bush was set to campaign. Bush brushed him off, Boehner recalls. "Get me Karl," the president told an aide. "Karl has the numbers."

Rove blames complacent candidates for much of the GOP's defeat. He says even some scandal-tainted members won when they followed what he calls "the program" of voter contacts and early voting. "Where some people came up short was where they didn't have a program," he told NEWSWEEK. But even Rove concedes that there were several hardworking incumbents, like Mike Fitzpatrick in Pennsylvania's Eighth District, who simply couldn't overcome the odds. In an election overwhelmed by war and scandal, the program was no match for their party's problems.

[grytpype]

1. "There was no bigger issue than the war, which Rove had pushed as a winning theme for the GOP."

That's how that fat little scumbag lost the election. If Bush had fired Rumsfeld and taken a more realistic view of the war by, say, Spring 06, or even Summer it would have been a totally different election. Instead, Rove was urging this strategy of embracing Victory in Iraq, when everyone already knew or suspected that the war was being lost.

[samdogmom]

2. Hmmmm, this line really jumps out at me:

"Bush brushed him off, Boehner recalls. "Get me Karl," the president told an aide. "Karl has the numbers.'"

Isn't this evidence that Karl had a hand in the election thefts in 2000, '02, and '04? Karl's numbers never matched reality--they were HIS numbers. Unfortunately, he couldn't pull off another theft this year because the country was not nearly as evenly divided as it has been in the past. He couldn't steal enough votes to cover the spread.

[MidwestTransplant]

3. It would have stood out more if he had said "get me Boener!"

;)

[rocktivity]

4. This is a Newsweek story? The same Newsweek that just a year ago reported:

...George W. Bush has always trusted his gut. He prides himself in ignoring the distracting chatter, the caterwauling of the media elites, the Washington political buzz machine...

...Bush can be cold and snappish...and aides sometimes cringe before (his)...displeasure... Bush can be petulant about dissent; he equates disagreement with disloyalty...

It's a standing joke among the president's top aides: who gets to deliver the bad news?...(A)fter Hurricane Katrina had ripped through New Orleans...the president would have to cut short his five-week vacation by a couple of days and return to Washington... Andrew Card...Joe Hagin...Dan Bartlett and...Scott McClellan held a conference call to discuss...the delicate task of telling him...

link

Of course Rove knew the truth--how could he not? At worst, he may have been so confident that the GOP would hold on to the Senate that it wouldn't be the end of the(ir) world if they lost the House. He just didn't bother telling Georgie because he knew Georgie wouldn't want to hear it. Instead, he concentrated on engineering the setting up of Rumsfeld and the gays in the RNC as the official scapegoats. So why is Newsweek acting so surprised?

:headbang:
rocknation