I meant to re-post this in honor of Karl Rove's resignation and dissembling appearance on
Meet the Press last week, but was waylaid by computer problems. So... you get it now. What's "it," you ask? Why, a review of
the 2004 documentary Bush's Brain, don'tcha know. Go ahead, take a trip back in time...
The notion of political advisors or “handlers,” though
hardly new, is a newly notoriously touchy one. These days no candidate wants to
be seen as weak or overtly under the thumb of special interest groups (ergo the
cliché of the “outsider’s” campaign), but it’s a reality that the current
political climate virtually requires that a competent electoral aspirant avail
himself/herself of a disparate variety of counsel and recommendation. Well…
that’s the theory at least — that this sort of cerebral subcontracting allows a
true leader to sift through contrasting arguments, form their own opinions upon
a sturdy bedrock of fact and research, and navigate complex issues with, if not
always ease, at least integrity, candor and grace. In the best-case scenario
this comes off as masterful multitasking, sometimes as serial wishy-washiness
(Bill Clinton had a bit of both) and, in the worst instances, as the vacuous
irresolution of a figurehead proxy.
Lately, though, the marionette strings are seemingly less
than transparent because of President George W. Bush’s less than spectacular
oratory prowess (he could make any given factoid-friendly middle school debate
team look like a lethal collection of extemporaneous geniuses) and almost
default facial position of mealy-mouthed suspiciousness. But is that an
accurate characterization, of either Bush or his alleged puppet master, Karl
Rove? An illuminating pinprick of behind-the-curtain political choreography,
Joseph Mealey and Michael Shoob’s non-fiction film makes a fairly
convincing case that it is.
Based on the book of the same name by Emmy-winning freelance
journalist James C. Moore and
Dallas
Morning News bureau chief Wayne Slater (both interviewed here),
Bush’s Brain assays the vast (undue?)
influence of political kingmaker Rove, dubbed “the man with the plan” by the
president himself. (Bush also called him "turd blossom," so go figure.) The movie features
a steady, mixed diet of interviews with those
who have worked alongside Rove, those who have opposed him and those whose
lives have been irrevocably altered by the brutal, no-holds-barred technique
of his Texas political campaigns,
from piddling agricultural commissioner races to Bill Clements and Dubya’s
gubernatorial races.
That said,
Bush’s
Brain, though left leaning, isn’t a radical, free-swinging document of irresponsible
polarity. Its indictment — to the degree that characterization is accurate
— comes via
a calculated cataloguing of its subject’s political absorption and
activism. A born-and-bred politico and avowed Republican (he fervently backed
Richard Nixon’s 1960 campaign against John F. Kennedy as a 10-year-old, and
papered his bedroom walls with news stories instead of popular sports or music
pin-ups), Rove bullied/willed his way to the presidency of the College
Republicans and parlayed that post into a variety of advisory and consulting
positions (he also teaches graduate students at the University of Texas).
Bush’s Brain
adequately chronicles
Rove’s divisive specialties (the politicizing of
trivialities, the use of blunt-trauma direct mail operations) and by extension
the scoreboard-mentality “athleticizing” of the political process — the very
modern obsession with not simply securing victory for one candidate based on
issue stance and experience but just as if not more importantly annihilating
and humiliating opponents. The film, however, could use a little more
elucidation of Rove’s formidable political vision and offensive-minded
strategy, especially given that one interviewee accurately deems Rove the
“Bobby Fischer of politics,” for his ability to see many “moves” beyond the
current political landscape. Among the more stomach-churning, reprehensible
segments concerning the latter are a misrepresentative sullying of Senator Max
Cleland (a Georgian Democrat) and the savaging of Senator John McCain in the
crucial 2000 South Carolina primary that has more than a few eerily parallels
to the recent shady “Swiftboat Veterans for Truth” smear campaign against
candidate John Kerry.
Whether
this Machiavellian reveal casts mortal blows to
Bush’s credibility is, in the end, in the eye of the beholder, but as
a movie
Bush’s Brain stands as an
engrossing and disturbing portrait of
the perversion of our political process —
a victim of our collective disdain and disinterest that we let it get dragged
down this far.
(Tartan, PG-13, 80 minutes)
