Oregon Water Saga Illuminates
Rove's Methods With Agencies

TOM HAMBURGER / Wall Street Journal 30jul03

[More on Rove below]

WASHINGTON—In a darkened conference room, White House political strategist Karl Rove was making an unusual address to 50 top managers at the U.S. Interior Department. Flashing color slides, he spoke of poll results, critical constituencies—and water levels in the Klamath River basin.

At the time of the meeting, in January 2002, Mr. Rove had just returned from accompanying President Bush on a trip to Oregon, where they visited with a Republican senator facing re-election. Republican leaders there wanted to support their agricultural base by diverting water from the river basin to nearby farms, and Mr. Rove signaled that the administration did, too.

Three months later, Interior Secretary Gale Norton stood with Sen. Gordon Smith in Klamath Falls and opened the irrigation-system head gates that increased the water supply to 220,000 acres of farmland—a policy shift that continues to stir bitter criticism from environmentalists and Indian tribes.

Though Mr. Rove's clout within the administration often is celebrated, this episode offers a rare window into how he works behind the scenes to get things done. One of them is with periodic visits to cabinet departments. Over the past two years Mr. Rove or his top aide, Kenneth Mehlman—now manager of Mr. Bush's re-election campaign—have visited nearly every agency to outline White House campaign priorities, review polling data and, on occasion, call attention to tight House, Senate and gubernatorial races that could be affected by regulatory action.

Every administration has used cabinet resources to promote its election interests. But some presidential scholars and former federal and White House officials say the systematic presentation of polling data and campaign strategy goes beyond what Mr. Rove's predecessors have done.

"We met together and talked a lot about issues of the day, but never in relation to polling results, specific campaigns or the president's popularity," says Lisa Guide, a political appointee at Interior during the Clinton administration. Frank Donatelli, political director in the Reagan White House, says "we were circumspect about discussing specific administration rulings that had yet to be made."

Mr. Rove declined to comment. White House spokeswoman Ashley Snee says the agency visits simply were designed to keep political appointees apprised of the president's accomplishments and priorities.

Klamath River water levels were an issue at least as far back as the 2000 presidential campaign. During the unusually dry summer of 2001, angry farmers stormed the head gates to forcibly release water, but the Bush administration generally resisted their demands. In 2002, the issue continued to loom large as Mr. Smith faced a potentially difficult re-election challenge.

On Jan. 5, Mr. Rove accompanied the president to an appearance in Portland with Mr. Smith. The president signaled his desire to accommodate agricultural interests, saying "We'll do everything we can to make sure water is available for those who farm."

The next day, Mr. Rove made sure that commitment didn't fall through the cracks. He visited the 50 Interior managers attending a department retreat at a Fish and Wildlife Service conference center in Shepherdstown, W.Va. In a PowerPoint presentation Mr. Rove also uses when soliciting Republican donors, he brought up the Klamath and made clear that the administration was siding with agricultural interests.

His remarks weren't entirely welcome—especially by officials grappling with the competing arguments made by environmentalists, who wanted river levels high to protect endangered salmon, and Indian tribes, who depend on the salmon for their livelihoods. Neil McCaleb, then an assistant Interior secretary, recalls the "chilling effect" of Mr. Rove's remarks. Wayne Smith, then with the department's Bureau of Indian Affairs, says Mr. Rove reminded the managers of the need to "support our base." Both men since have left the department.

An Interior spokesman, Mark Pfeifle, says Mr. Rove spoke in general terms about the Klamath conflict in the course of a broader discussion. Without directing a policy outcome, Mr. Pfeifle says, Mr. Rove simply "indicated the need to help the basin's farmers."

In the end, that is what happened when Interior reversed its previous stance and released more water. Mr. Rove's intervention wasn't the only reason. Mr. McCaleb himself says the biggest factor was a report from the independent National Research Council, which questioned the basis on which Interior scientists had made earlier Klamath flow decisions.

But Mr. Rove didn't let the matter drop after the Shepherdstown meeting. Weeks later, he returned to Oregon and met with a half-dozen or so farmers and ranchers. Thereafter, the White House formed a cabinet-level task force on Klamath issues. The results became clear on March 29, when the water was released to parched farms.

That hasn't ended the controversy. Environmentalists blame the change in water levels for the subsequent death of more than 30,000 salmon, calling it the largest fish kill in the history of the West.

A National Marine Fisheries Service biologist, Michael Kelly, has asked for protection under federal "whistle-blower" laws, saying he was subjected to political pressure to go along with the low-water plan and ordered to ignore scientific evidence casting doubt on the plan. This month, a federal judge ruled the administration violated the Endangered Species Act in the way it justified the water diversion.

Administration officials note that the judge found fault only with a narrow portion of the biological opinion, and didn't order changes in water flow. Interior is investigating the cause of the fish kill, Mr. Pfeifle says.

Oregon farmers point to other factors in the salmon kill, including water temperature and the presence of an infectious disease during salmon-spawning season. And they haven't stopped pressing to keep the irrigation water coming.

A few weeks ago, the federal Bureau of Reclamation in Klamath Falls warned farmers that the department would curtail the irrigation flow. Irate, Republican Rep. Greg Walden began making calls to protest. His first one went to Mr. Rove's office.

Within hours, the idea was dropped. Interior officials say managers from two cabinet departments agreed on a way to avoid it.

More on Rove . . .

"I have no interest whatsoever in being in Washington DC. I'm happy right here." --Karl Rove, when asked if he will head for the White House if Phil Gramm, the candidate he handled in 1996, wins the presidency.

Best known for:
George W. Bush's chief strategist. Consultant to U.S. Senators Phil Gramm, Kay Bailey Hutchison and many other right-wing politicians.

Born:
December 25, 1950 in Denver, and grew up in Colorado, Utah and Nevada.

Family:
His father was a geologist. At age nine, Rove became a faithful Republican when he backed Richard Nixon against John Kennedy.

Education:
Attended nearly half a dozen colleges without getting a degree.

Profession:
Teaches graduate students at the University of Texas.

Career:
In the years of the Watergate scandal, Rove's career as a big-time political handler began with a motley crew of friends and associates. He was chairman of the College Republicans when George Herbert Walker Bush was chairman of the state Republican Party in 1973. He won the presidency of the College Republicans in a race against Terry Dolan. The late Lee Atwater, who later became famous as the political attack dog for the Reagan-Bush team, managed Rove's campaign. Dolan went on to become a Soft Money pioneer by helping form the National Conservative Political Action Committee, then died of AIDS in 1986 at age 36. Dolan's advisers in his loss to Rove were Charlie Black, Paul Manafort and Roger Stone. Those three were later instrumental in the success of Ronald Reagan's 1984 campaign.

Atwater joined the consulting firm of Black, Manafort and Stone after the '84 election. The firm later worked for the 1988 Bush-Quayle campaign. Two of Nixon's dirty tricksters also worked for Bush-Quayle: Frederick Malek, Bush's Republican National Committee rep, who had compiled lists of Jews in the Bureau of Labor Statistics as part of Nixon's investigation of a "Jewish Cabal;" and Dwight Chapin, who was jailed for lying to a grand jury about hiring Donald Sigretti to disrupt the 1972 Democratic primary campaign of Senator Edward Muskie. Chapin worked under Manafort in 1988. The firm's other clients included drug-connected Bahamian Prime Minister Oscar Pindling, Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos, and UNITA, the South African-supported Angolan rebel group led by CIA asset Jonas Savimbi. Lee Atwater lobbied for UNITA. All of which began when Atwater was introduced to George Bush in 1973, by his good friend Karl Rove.

In 1980, Bush hired Rove to help him run for president. He was the first person Bush hired for the campaign. Atwater became chairman of the Republican National Committee and one of Bush's closest political advisors. In 1981, when Bush became Reagan's vice president, Rove started his consulting business, Karl Rove & Co. His first direct mail client was Bill Clements, the first Republican in a century to become Texas governor.

Rove began working for Bill Clements in 1978. Four years later, he was working for Phil Gramm, who was in the U.S. House of Representatives as an old-style conservative Texas Democrat. In 1984, Rove helped Gramm, now a Republican, defeat Democrat Lloyd Doggett in the race for U.S. Senate. It was that same year, 1984, that Rove handled direct-mail for the Reagan-Bush campaign. In 1986, he helped Clements become governor a second time. In 1988, Rove helped Tom Phillips to victory, the first Republican elected to the Texas Supreme Court. Ten years later Republicans held all nine seats. Mark McKinnon, a former Democratic consultant who defected to the Bush campaign, called Rove the "Bobby Fischer of politics. He not only sees the board, he sees about 20 moves ahead."

Rove has been closely advising George W. Bush since he announced he was a candidate for Governor in November 1993. By January 1994, Bush had spent $613,930 on the race against incumbent Ann Richards. Over half of that, $340,579, went to Rove. In a state long dominated by Democrats, albeit right-wing ones, every statewide elected office was, by 1999, held by a Republican. Many of those politicians succeeded with the help of Rove. During the November election, the half-dozen candidates he advised were all winners.

Bush has called Rove a close friend and confidant, and a man with good judgment. Almost a quarter of all the money Bush's presidential exploratory committee spent from January to the end of March, 1999, went to Rove's consulting firm ($220,228). Rove soon sold his consulting firm to devote himself to the Bush campaign. Long known locally as a political kingmaker, the possibility of a second Bush in the White House has made Rove more famous.

Sources: Robert Bryce, "The Man Behind the Candidate," The Austin Chronicle, March 18, 1994, pp. 23, 28-30, 32-33; Robert Bryce, "The fab four:Meet the people maneuvering behind the scenes to put George W. Bush in the White House," Salon magazine, June 16, 1999, (http://www.salon.com/news/feature/1999/06/16/advisors/index1.html); Paul Brancato, “Bush League” illustrated cards (Forestville, California: Eclipse Enterprises, 1989), pp. 5, 13, 18.

source: http://www.famoustexans.com/karlrove.htm 8auug03