the author, brian >> karl rove in "courage and consequence" you write that you had doubts about vice president cheney being selected and you had to share those doubts in front of him. what was that like? >> it was an interesting moment. governor bush liked cheney as opposed to the others we were looking at. he called me at home, coming in off of the road, he said i want you to come over. he knew i was against cheney. there were five or six of us who knew about this. he said i want to come over tomorrow morning to the governor's mansion and lay out the chase for cheney. come and be prepared. tell me why you don't think it ought to be cheney. i went over to the governor's mansion and sat down in the small room, the austin library

with him. sitting about as close as i am to you, for about 30, 35 minutes i laid out the chase against cheney. end i had eight reasons whereby with starting we didn't need to worry about wyoming. cheney was a conservative member of congress and we'd have to defend his voting record, including voting against the resolution, calling nelson down, starting at the age -- you know, in his mid 30s and have to defend questions of his health and fitness. occasionally governor bush said i'd agree with that, what if i said this. what would you say if i said that. at the end of it when i exhausted my list and he said, do you have anything else. he turns to the guy, he said dick, there's the reasons why. it goes to show a couple of

things about bush. one is he views this as governing decision, not political. you are right on most or all of that stuff. that's all politics. you can deal with that. my job is to worry about if something happened to me, who would the country have confidence in? second of all, it shows bush's style. he likes to have people around him who have strong opinions and may not may agree with his that would lay it out in a straightforward way in front of others who might have a different opinion. it was quite an experience. >> did your opinion of dick cheney change over the eight years? >> well, my opinion of him, you know , when i left the room, i thought oh, great. i've irritated the guy that's likely to be the vice president. cheney said i gray -- i agree with what you had to say. we became great friends. he said that was my job. my job was to think through those questions. he wasn't going to take it personally.

>> host: what's a rovian campaign? >> it's not what it's normally depicted. in the book, chapter four, the ugly things that people say are at the heart. most of which are fear base, fear base, mud ball politics. i have a couple of great quotes in there. the one that's my personal favorite is the guy said rove and his minions never stop. based on a very, very negative view of the lek rat. you know, those fundamentally say the electorate that can be won over for senate, governor, or president are motivated by those base instincts. i think we reject them. people who cross those lines and run those kind of campaigns tend to lose. in fact, tend to lose a lot. but a rovian campaign is one that is based around first of

all a big authentic idea. what is it the man or woman running for office wants to achieve. at the end of the day, that's what voters are going to judge them by, what is their vision and do they have the capacity, their background, their experience that gives people confidence that they will be able to achieve that vision. it's 23409 easy to do. i mean, you know, the best way to look at it politically is saying as the years of childhood favorite we were all taught. at the end of the parade, they will see you as you are. hopefully one of your better days. but they will see you as they are. candidates that lack core values and central values just run on the basis of something that's completely phony tend to lose. > host: then why is there a feeling about you by a lot of folks that you're negative and devisive? >> yeah. a number of myths.

john mccain campaign held bush responsible by -- you know, i was easier to attack than bush. i was supposedly responsible for this e-mail from a professor at bob jones university that alleged john mccain had fathered a black baby out of wedlock. it was ugly. vicious smear. even jonathan working at cnn got ahold of the professor that said i did this on my own. so what. i have a right to do it. but it was a vicious bigoted smear on john mccain. the kind of thing that, look, south carolina voters are not attracted by that. it was the kind of thing on the surface just didn't help anybody who didn't want john mccain made president. it was the kind of thing that people naturally reject. then what happened is mccain stood up and said george bush is

behind this. south carolina republicans like mccain and bush. liked them both. not one in 1,000 would believe that george bush was capable of doing that. my personal view when it happened was i was afraid. i think mccain would seize upon it to talk about himself. the story behind his and his wife's adoption from an orphanage run by mother teresa. instead of saying hold on, here's what i want the people of south carolina and america to know about me, instead he said bush did this. and shame on bush. and i have no evidence that bush did it. but, you know, shame on bush. and as a result, it was the hole mindset. it wasn't just this one evidence. that kind of add to and made

itself evident in other says that's south carolina than i talk in the book and lost the primary and hence lot the nomination in the presidential election. >> you also had an incident to meet john mccain later on. >> yeah, in 2004, mccain offered through a long-time aide and person that i knew mccain would campaign for us. and they appear in washington state which was nonpolitical and campaign rally. the president said on the first sort of swing, i don't want you along. you can work out your problems with mccain later. he laughed. he thought that was funny. so the first trip that i spent with mccain was in florida. we flew to pensacola, florida and end the the day in panama city. when we got an air force one at andrews, the president had a cia briefing.

he said go back and talk to mccain. entertain mccain until i'm ready. this is awkward. look mccain's campaign and even mccain's wife, his wife famously said she was asked if she had a chance would she stab me in the back, she said no, i'll stab him in the front. there were high emotions about that. i back and sit down and start to talk. i'm nervous. but mccain had his naval aviator flight training in pence cola. -- pensacola. he started talking about his flight training and exotically named woman. he was one wild naval aviator. we then flew into pensacola where he had done his training and went to a stadium or facility that held about 10,000 people. it was packed to the gills with people. when they announced mccain and

the president was sea of noise. and it discome boblated mccain. this is where the two of them take off their jackets. bush raising his arms. mccain and he join his arm. the president realizes the mccain can't wave. mccain is so overwhelmed he tries to say something to him. we made the rest of the day. this was an extraordinary day. this was really bush country, the panhandle of floor. more sheets were sacrificed in the children lines the road, mobs blocked highway 30a at seaside and literally physically stopping the bus all alone the day i'm sitting next to mccain and he said look at this, my arm is literally black and blue by the end of the day. we end the day in the fantastic

rally. it's in the driving range of panama. we pull up. in a driving rain, tracy bird is is the country western singing saying he's the only guy on the stage. just as the bus pulls up and mccain and bush get out, the clouds part, the rain stops, the sun comes in the gulf of mexico. and these two men emerge on the stage. it was really one the fantastic moment. and we have the next day compulsively from mccain. >> you had the picture if you were the opposition. >> guest: i think -- i don't think ultimately it helped them. i think it easy to implement. but it made them -- i mean people did not think mccain was george w. bush.

if you wanted to say there were other ways of doing it. if you can do things, if you win the campaign, everybody thinks we're useful and effective. but in a rally they weren't. there were other things that drove it. i think barack obama inspiring rhetoric, not red states and blue states but the united states. his postpartisanship, bipartisan, i think those were far more effective than him saying john mccain is george bush three. >> host: this is the book. "courage and consequence." karl rove is the author. we are taking calls. we're going to go to the side right now.

you write you like being in the middle after political fire storm. >> guest: like i said, i found myself. you either need to be comfortable there or find another line of work. >> host: patrick fitzgerald was skilled? >> guest: he is. he's a special prosecutor. we now know some things that we knew parts at the time. we know the allegation was that i let valerie claim robert novak. i didn't. the allegation was that the done in order to damage her husband. richard in order to explain why a question as to why he went to africa. the allegation was it was thought and down from the special prosecutor activity. there was no underline of offense.

we also know that what joe wilson said in his july 6 interview in the "new york times" was wrong. he had said that he had been to africa to investigate the claim of the british intelligence that saddam hussein had attempted to plant in africa. he had the alleged report that was shared with and vice president at highest level of white house. not true. when he alleged that condi rice had blocked it from being presented to the president, not not true. it never made @ white house. when he said he talked with members of vice president cheney's staff, that was not true. he was wrong when he said that he disproved the british. he never understood and knew what the basis of the british claim was. he was collective in proving that saddam had never attempted

to do it. in fact, when he came back, he came and orally reported about a previously unknown by the third party to force the niger government to accept the trade. the niger government said we only trade one thing. uranium is on the international sanctions, we're not taking the trade. we know he was wrong when he said he disproved the italian forgery. documents that show up eight months after he return from africa that he had no role in disproving. in fact, when he was later questioned by this by the senate college, he said he had a literary license. at the end of this, in order to investigate the claim that his wife's name had been linked, there was a three-year long investigation. in the book i write about it in detail. after four visits to the grand jury over a two-year period, the special prosecutor, patrick fitzgerald says to my attorney,

come visit me in chicago. we'll discuss it. and when my lawyer goes chicago and meets with him, he is astonished on what has gone on and what his stumbling places were. >> host: you refer to how much that cost you. have you ever said publicly? >> guest: no. >> host: a lot? >> guest: you mean officially? >> guest: no. >> host: six figures? >> guest: none of your business. >> host: george, new york. you're first. >> caller: hi, i've had the give you congratulations on the book. i believe that history is going to show that george bush was not just a good president, but he was a great president. >> host: how? >> caller: well, i believe he stuck to his convictions, he

believed in what he believed. and he didn't listen until he made his decision -- he did listen until he made his decision. i really respect that. i actually am from pennsylvania. and i was on the red raid of the little league. and bush was on the frogs. he was the pitcher. he was a very good pitcher. and i really respect you coming on the show today because i know you're going to get a lot of calls that are going to say that, you know, you caused the meltdown financially, that you lied about the weapons in iraq, and even the that you caused 9/11. i would like you to know there are millions of people out here who support you and who are going to listen to those calls and just think here's another person who really isn't informed. i blame a lot of this stuff, i

think they have a terrible bias, liberal bias. i mean come on, george -- >> host: all right. we have lots on the table, george. thanks. >> guest: you know, it's interesting. history over time makes the judgment about the president. when harry truman left with 22% approval. now history looks at him as a president who put in place the institution used by his successors, republicans and to fight and win the cold war. and, you know, we're going through a little bit of polk revisionism. people are looking back as the 11th president and making decisions on him based upon the historical record. i hope it doesn't take that long for george w. bush -- i had a interesting experience in the airport. guy comes up to me, he said you're karl rove. i said yes.

he said i didn't vote for bush either time. he said i learned for obama. he said it's not as easy as it looks. i said no, it isn't. you tell bush, thanks for keeping our country safe. i think there will be a lot of that going on. >> you think the media liking the play by play. >> there's a wonderful book by a guy named patterson in which he charts the focus on presidential campaigns on process and not substance. i think this is a failer of our system. we are more interested in the latest poll or the latest inside -- the warfare inside the campaign as opposed to the big issue that is are dividing candidates and chaptering their various courses in politics. >> host: next call. barry. hi >> caller: hey. how are you doing? mr. rove, i wanted to thank you for coming out on c-span. >> guest: you bet.

>> caller: all right. do you believe the executive branch has a higher authority? does it listen to the other branches? and does it have to go to the other house on the committee? do you believe that's a bad precedent for any administration to set is because it should be some form of transparency between each party. >> guest: yeah. that's a good question. you had two questions. let me divide them and take them one at a time. the first question is does the executive branch at a time of war have higher authority? end i would say yes. both the constitution and practice. for example, the constitution deliberately makes clear to the president of the united states is the commander in chief of the military. there was to make certain there was no division between authorities. they had a bad experience with some of the powers of the continental congress exercised over the direction of the military. so they made it deliberate

attempt to clarify that it was the president who has the civilian elected official held privacy over the nil tear. congress retains the power of the budget. but they wanted to make certain the president was in charge. now obviously this has been disputed at times. for example, during the civil war there was a special commission joint congressional committee on the conduct of the war which attempted to micromanage the conduct in the war. which lincoln to had constantly battle with. the second question that you talk about is my refusal to speak before congress in response to the subpoenas from the house judiciary committee regarding the u.s. attorneys. and in this instance, i wasn't a free actor. it wasn't my decision not to respond tot subpoena. i did so at the direction of george w. bush who retains a right under our constitution to have confidential advice given to him by his senior aides.

this is well established by the powers doctrine and upheld by the supreme court which said the president is the most senior advisers are generally the assistance to the president are like parts. it's not up to their discretion. because of what this involved, the u.s. attorney situation, the president said do not respond to the subpoena. but they did give us leeway to provide the information to congress in a way that would protect the form of the president's privilege while giving in the substance of the information they wanted. over of the course of a year and a half or two we provided them on five separate occasions options for doing that. congress remained stalled trying to breech the wall by requiring presidential aides of any nature to be brought before the congress or at congress' call. the call got into office in march of 2009.

he said, okay, accept the offer. they told the house judiciary committee to in essence accept the offer that we had made to them for two years of having me provide the information under oath but not in response to congressional subpoena. so it protects the president's privilege, the form of it, while at the same time giving congress what it wants. because of this intervention by president obama to direct congress to accept the deal they have been offered, i went before the house jew dish their committee staff and was questioned by the republican congressman from various and that was available on my web site. i thought it was wise of president obama to uphold the democrats in congress to degree to accept what had been offered them to two years. and as i say, it makes for -- it

makes for boring reading. but it was an important principal. >> guest: what was the decision to go to war? >> guest: yeah, ted kennedy gives a speech that bush lied about the wmd. later that day there was a news conference that repeats the charge. next day john kerry reiterated the charge and john east side wards in a committee hearing makes the same charge. at the end of the day they are joined by congressman jane harman on the house intelligence committee. therefore beginning a -- several years in which the democrats allege that bush lied about wepons of mass destruction. and i try to make the point in the chapter in the book if you believe that bush lied, then you got to deal with the fact that a large number of democrats, al gore, hillary clinton, four or

five people, the democrat intelligence committee, later the ranking member of the committee had components of the war all said that iraq had to use a consensus of the intelligence community shared about the government, shared broadly trout the government under clinton and bush and shared widely through western intelligence opportunities. and the preponderance of the evidence was 110 people voted for it. 60 of them stand up on the floor of the house and said saddam had wepons of mass destruction. if you say bush lied, you have to assume that those people lied. including people with the proposed solution. we now know he didn't have it. he had lots of material. we foul yellow cake uranium, we

found bilogical and deliverly systems, we have artillery shells that had contained biological and chemical weapons that had degraded over time. but we didn't find wmd optive and usable which is what we feared. in fact, as we approached baghdad, we hear chatter saying when are we going to get permission to use the weapons? we know now because of two reports, weapons inspector's report, that saddam did retain an active and robust interest in the weapons. his attitude is the west is going to lose interest on it's sanctions on iraq and i, saddam, am going to be everything i can to erode it. i'm going to divert tens of millions of dollars a year to undercut it. i'm going to take the money and spend it on keeping together the chlorine gas plants and the engineer scientist and technician who know these systems and how to deliver

them. so when the sanction expires, i can redo the programs. the chemical and biological programs, some of them would take a lot to start. his at a to do is look, this is important to me. i need people to think i've got these. maybe he did. he thought he actually did have this stuff. in my neighbor because it keeps people from -- he keeps them in line. my view is on my own people. hundreds of thousands of people used in all kinds. but it also keeps the west from messing with me. it's a deter rant. they don't want to mess with me if i have this stuff. you know, we had to act on the basis of the information we knew. the information we had was that he had them, and it was a threat. i would remind you intelligence gets it wrong the other way too. as we -- after we took out the taliban and as pressure is

gearing up on iraq, libia saying you know, moammar said they will take on me, they will take on me. we found western intelligence of how the systems were pumped. they underestimated how the biological programs were and how long to the nuclear program was. >> host: susan e-mails. >> guest: i respect that. i disagree. we water board u.s. military men in training for invasion and escape. and water boarding was used in a very carefully described and

proscribed way. i put the memos about it's use up on my web site. rove.com. people can read them and see how careful these lawyers at the department of justice were in making certain that our commitments under our law and our international commitments were met. you only get the information we received once the technique had been used and resistance had been broken. it saved lives both here and abroad and foils plots. some are which are known to the public, and some of which are not. > host: gail in maryland. good afternoon or gad morning. >> caller: good morning. mr. rove, i think that you should have named your book "lies and disaster." >> host: why, gail? >> caller: well, because first of all we all know that your administration came into office already ready to believe your rewriting of his history that's in this book of yours.

and first of all, let's not forget that it was the memo from the vice president's officer that did stir up all of the stuff about valley plane. and you were the source for both cooper and novak, a confirming source. libby was the confirming source for miller. we also know that roger -- rather than michael le dean enterprise institute was suspected of being involved in the italian group of thugs that broke in and to -- >> host: gail, a lot on the table. >> guest: first of all. she has not read my book. i appreciate some people hype ventilate about this. read the book before you start making judgments like that. first of all, it is a joke to suggest that president bush is determined from the moment that he arrives in office to invade

iraq. that is pair pair -- paranoia. stop drinking swamp water. it's giving you bad fevers. the vice president started this, i don't think he sends a memo, but he does call the cia and say in essence, i want to find out more about this claim. i mean he examined the evidence. i was, you know, rob novak, i was not the source. richard was the source. my contribution and conversation is when he tells me that valerie sent her husband tonger, at first i can't figure out who he's talking about. i didn't know wilson's wife was valley. -- valerie. when he said that, i heard that too. if novak said i need you to

confirm something, i can't confirm it. i've heard it. but i couldn't have confirmed it. my point is the allegation was that i leaked her name. we now know that i didn't. it was done for political purposes, we know novak asked richard why was he sent to africa? because he had no background in these issues. he doesn't seem well suited for an intelligence gathering missionary high profile sort of egotistical ambassador. if there wasn't an office, richard would be in a much different place than making a living by being an international consultant. obviously, there was no underlying offense. you know, but i know -- look, this is the kind of intensity polarized. when people thought it was me, they cowered about this. they camped out in front of my

desk with news crew. but in august of 2006 when it was revealed that it was richard, suddenly the interest went away. there was a part of the washington insiders, not that political guy that came up to washington from texas where bush. >> good portion of this book is dedicated to the joe wilson affair in a chapter called joe wilson. and another chapter called anything from a scalp. president bush is absent from all of that. >> guest: oh, no. he's in there. in fact, early on when this starts to bubble up -- when it starts to become a matter of public controversy with a leak, a leak incident, violation of federal law, that there's now an investigation underway into the circumstances around valerie's name becoming public. i went to the chief of staff and the white house council and said this is the contact that i had

with robert novak, immediately. the president called me from the oval and says tell me. and which i did. now interestingly enough, the never knows about richard's conversation with bob novak. it's unclear exactly when during the process of september of 2003 secretary of state powell becomes aware of it. at the end of september, he appears on abc "this week" and says, in essence, we don't know anything about it. >> host: you dedicate to the book to andrew, darby, louis and reba. who are they? >> guest: my son and former wife and mom and dad. my wife and i was very close. we have great affection.

washington was very hard on the marriage. >> host: tell us about reba. >> guest: he was my mother. she and my father met when they were very young. very early 20s. he was a student at colorado school of mines. they were very different. graduated from high school. never went to college. he was a very smart, graduated and became a mining engineer, geologist. he was interested in classic music, reading, art, and she wasn't. they were very much in love. for a number was was years, they had five children. it was a remarkable relationship. >> host: she committed suicide. >> guest: she did. they separated and 12 years later a rift of hope at the age of 51 after what turned out to be a failed third marriage, she drove into the desert north of

reno and took the tail pipe and put it in the cab and turned it on and killed herself. >> guest: how long did that take to adjust to? >> guest: i don't think you ever can adjust to that. i mean, i know it hit some of my sibling who lived near her and were much more in touch with her and closer to her than i was. i lived here in texas. i really saw her, but, you know, it effects everybody. when the book came out one of her grandchildren -- one of my nieces reached out to me and told me things about how she was still trying to gap the with it today. she was a very small child when it happened. >> host: jeanne in florida. >> caller: yeah, mr. rove in your book you state that president bush would not have invaded iraq had he know there were no wepons of mass destruction. that's not exactly true.

the memos show that in january 2003, two months before we attacked iraq, bush told tony blair that he was determined to invade iraq with or without proof of wepons of mass destruction. memo document that is both bush and blair agrees there were no wmds, and bush suggested painting an american surveillance plane and having them shoot it down. using that as justification for attacking iraq. >> guest: that's nutty. >> host: okay. >> guest: yeah, that's it. look, the idea that george w. bush and tony blair engaged in a conspiracy to invade iraq knowing there was no wmd -- >> host: have you heard that one? >> guest: i haven't. but it's nutty. >> host: why do you capitalize

the left when you talk about politics? >> guest: well, it's the left and right. you know, it's sort of the places on the political spectrum. >> host: next call. >> caller: actually, it's a editor and style manner. you can't hold me upon for all of the questions in the book. >> host: what was the process like of writing this as your first book? > guest: first book. >> host: how much editing? >> guest: a lot. my editor, priscilla is brilliant. and he was very tough. i mean it was challenging. he'd read something and say i want this to be your voice and your conclusion. but here are things you need to deal with. and then we brought in a line editor to shorten it all up who is my editor at the wall street journal who is a genius.

priscilla and i were in awe of what he suggested to make it crisper, sharper, face pace. then i had the unnamed copy editor. as you may know in the publishing business, they assign you copy editor and in some firms, apparently it's a practice not to tell you who that is and never let you meet them. all i know is this person has very nice handwriting and writes very clearly in red pencil and was a very sharp writer. then we had it go by the lawyers. then we back through one massive edit with priscilla, brandon and i. >> host: what about the lawyers with the white house? >> guest: a lot. as you see in the book, it has 40 some pages of footnotes. so i had -- i had even more pages of footnotes available. so the editor was -- excuse me, the lawyer was pretty good. because he had a lot of material that he could fall back on. his were mainly changing words,

softening it a little bit. but he had a lot of back up. >> host: troy, los angeles. good morning. >> caller: good morning. mr. rove, i was curious why in your book you didn't address the 2004 atlantic magazine profile you that claims that the in 1990s, you started a whisper campaign against the political opponent in alabama in which you claim that he was a pedophile. >> host: have you read the book? >> caller: yes, i did, sir. >> host: well, then you missed something. i do address that in the book. this is involving an alabama supreme court case p the allegation is that the we attacked this person as being a pedophile because he was involved in a very influential group devoted to children's. it was false. if we made that kind of allegation, you would think it

appears in single newspaper story in alabama. it didn't. it involves a whisper campaign. well, look you can't effect the outcome of a race in a state with millions of voters as there are in the state of alabama by starting a whisper campaign. again, it assumes something about the voters that is really sort of demeaning to the voters. that an unverified, unsubsansuated rumor being spread through law student is going to be widely accepted and believed and be heard by hundreds of thousands of voters and change their opinion. and there it is, you have the chapter. chapter 32, the rove: the myth. i also talk about it in the i believe in the chapter. >> host: you also talking about speaking of alabama, don seek theman. >> guest: right. >> host: why are there so many of these stories about you out there? is there a starting point to all of this? >> guest: well, one

particular writer for the atlantic is gullible. he's bit on a couple of these. he also bit on the theory in a campaign involving 1996 campaign involving harold c., who's running for the supreme court in alabama, one tactic i got involved with was top print up large numbers of fliers attacking him with the idea that these would be widely spread around and generate a wave of sympathy for harold c. the writer in question is gullible. there's no supplier. and idea that you're going to effect untiles of people by taking as he -- effect millions of people as taking the fliers and throwing them out on people's lawn is absurd. there's not a single story in the entire gain. nobody, i called people in alabama said have you heard of this before? nobody that i talked to was ever familiar with the charge.

then what he missed was that in this particular campaign the democrat candidate runs an ad attacking harold c. that cbs news after the election picked out as the worst mud ball out of the entire campaign. and this writer for the atlantic, while he comes up the scheme of rove con conducted a flier that attacked harold c. but generate sympathy and response and effect millions of people around the state. he comes up with that, no evidence, leaves out entirely the mud ball ad thrown up againsthand c. in the final week that was egregious and over the top. out of all of the crap, this is the most egregious. >> host: are there other political consultants who have kind of got your reputation in some circles? >> you know, lee atwater was on the receiving end.

there were allegations of jim farley from the in thes and under franklin roosevelt. look, you can't compare before to today. cable tv, c-span, internet, a plethora of channels and politics that's highly polarized. we can say the most outrageous things and somebody will print it. for example, there's one story that recount in the book about an attack made on me by jake tapper. who suggests that i had taken the bush campaign debate materials and sent them to the gore campaign in 2002. -- in 2000. we found out we got our hands on it and sent it to help prepare tom gore for debate. this sounds like rove. and quotes a number of people who say it sounds like rove. he then puts in there, there's no evidence for this. simply repeating the charge a

lot. i put it in the book. he took coverage with it and said i didn't say rove did it. i said he didn't do it. he goes on to say i was looking for a peg to write this about rove's style. that's my point. people write about this. if there's no evidence rove did it, that's proof enough for me. by god he is that good. he doesn't -- we can't get his fingerprints on it. >> host: brian in michigan you're on with karl rove who's book is "courage and consequence." >> caller: hi, karl. lots of respect for you and former president bush. we do have differences. i've spent time in the middle east. don't claim to know everything. especially after -- well, not -- me get confused. not the department of homeland security, i was totally against that because in effect what we've done is obviously we've got another layer of bureaucracy. we're still not connecting the dots. we still don't hold the people

accountable. the change -- i'm only 51. the biggest change in our society now, karl, is let's go back to the call. all right. that commander there failed. and i say he failed because he didn't protect his ship. i've been in that port, karl, numerous times. we were never on so much height and aall right as when we pulled into aden. we knew what we were getting into. no one could have gotten close to our ship without dying first. they couldn't have done that. >> guest: i think he's right. that there are instances where we failed to either connect the dots or failed to put as in the case of pickets out to keep the boats away. that in essence suicide bomber, that boat with the bomb got too close to the coal and people died. i understand this issue about not wanting to have another layer of bureaucracy. but what the creation of the

homeland security department did was take a wide number of agencies spread throughout the government who had a roughly similar mission. that is to say protecting the homeland and brought them together in a place where their activities could be coordinated and consolidated. it didn't make any sense to have -- units spread out through the conference and agriculture department and the transportation department and elsewhere, if they all had the same mission. you know, we had martyr agencies stand alone or within the treasury department. they are better off being together and better able to coordinate. that's not to say it's perfect. any time you try to jam that much government together and rationalize it, that's a complicated puzzle. the counterterrorism which takes the flood of data to get the hands around the concept of the volume of the data and analyze

it in a way to get disturbing problems is a very complicated task. even when you have the best people in the world motivated by the best instincts and given extraordinary train, you're still going to have mistakes. we saw it in the christmas day bomber. why didn't the state department pass on the warnings? why isn't there weren't warning bells going off when a guy buys a ticket and is paying cash with a one-way ticket that's coming into the united states? it's a sobering reminder that all they have to do is get it right once. we have to get it right every time. >> host: you're right. the high school debate team taught me that saying on offense of important. once you were on defense, it's hard to regain control of the dialogue. >> guest: also. you need to think about how the argument is going to play out to

how things might flow so you can continue to fend in your direction. >> guest: trunk, you are on with karl rove. please go ahead. >> caller: good morning. i'm not supposed to be surprised that mr. rove is, you know, being again to the in the first place i have so much respect for you i don't think you'll take a call of the air without giving you that. i want to ask a question. and then i hope i get an answer. much before september 11, louis and his final call supported the letter was sent to president clinton timed by dick cheney, rumsfeld, and, you know, the so-called neocons. the question for the overture of them. are you aware of that?

or are you going to say you never heard it? if that is true, sorry -- if that was true, how do you come and say it wasn't pre -- you know, come in without those people and those specific points. thank you. >> host: is he referring to the gary schmidt letter? >> guest: yeah, that's it. but there was a bipartisan consensus under president clinton that regime change should be the policy of the united states. and the united states congress passed resolution calls on that backed by the administration. and, in fact, i believe it actually required a significantture by president clinton in the iraq liberation act i think the title of the bill is. there was a broad consensus, bipartisan in nature if you go back to the '90s, you can see this emerge with democrats and republicans believing that saddam r represented a threat. he invaded kuwait, expelled by kuwait after the united nations authorized a coalition action

led by the united states. then over the course of the '90s he stiffed arm i think the total 14 and 17 by another resolutions of the united nations saying live up to the terms of surrender agreement you made in the aftermath of the first gulf war. in fact, in the late 1990s when when blixt, representing the international weapon inspection regime finds biological material and active weapons program. in the mid '90s that we uncover a robust nuclear program. after this guy has surrendered after the first golf war and agreed to give up this material. so this -- you know, there is a bipartisan effort under way in the '90s that is the backing of the clinton/gore administration that regime change in iraq must be the policy and should be the policy of the pups there's a lot different than saying we're going to invade. that's why the authorization and the united nations resolution authorizing the use of force if

he failed to comply was so important. >> host: what do you think of the term neocons? >> guest: you know, i don't know exactly what it mines. it sounds to me it's the neoconservative was originally a domestic term coined by irvine crystal. it was a liberal that was mugged by reality. i think it's been used in a different way to apply to foreign policy, foreign policy school that says the expansion of democracy is in the security interest of the united states. that a world that is more democratic and more free is also going to be a world that's more stable and more peaceful. >> host: do you still talk to president bush regularly? >> guest: i do. every couple of days. we e-mail back and forth every day. >> host: what are you reading? >> guest: i'm reading too much. i'm reading a wonderful book about letters. i'm reading, in fact, i think y'all had a problem on it. i'm suffering a senior moment, during the book tour, gore dan

woods "empire of liberty" and i'm nearly finish with "the persian expedition." >> host: next call for karl rove. >> guest: one correction. i made my mistake my goal was to read a book a week. so many people have e-mailed me this next week i'm going to start presidenting -- putting my reading list at rove.com. >> host: angela, you are on. >> caller: hello, mr. rove. i'm calling first of all my question is for steve. i would like to know if you would give me a chance to rename karl rove's book. >> guest: actually, it's not up to him. it's up to my publisher. >> host: this is not steve. it's peter. go ahead with your question and what you'd like to rename the

book. >> guest: okay. i would like to rename it the "untruth about iraq war." mr. rove, i have a question to you about is i totally disagree with you on the statement that you say that the only people we tortured were the high-valued detainees or whatever. because it's a proven fact in the documentary called "iraq for sale" that it was done by contracts all over in iraq and afghanistan. > guest: i disagree 37 our laws do not allow tortures and these enhanced interrogation techniques were designed to get cooperation but within the limits of our laws and international commitments. look, i appreciate he doesn't agree with me on iraq. but again i find it hard to believe she's even read the book. read the book. all i ask is a fair reading.

we can have a responsible disagreement about it. these sort of i want to retitle the book without having read it striked me as a little short minded. >> host: could she have that dialogue with you on your web site? >> guest: i'd say on facebook page and karl rove.com where i accept e-mails. if people are rude, it goes to the trash. so don't bother. >> host: allen from gary, indiana. >> caller: good morning. i know often times there a statement or statements made about how safe the country was after september 11th. but i'd like karl to explore the idea of how safe we were september 10th and before given richard clark's admonitions about the danger of terrorists taking over aircrafts and doing damage in this country. and i also -- i'm kind of

curious about the -- what karl's take would be on the cycle drama that appeared to happen when you elect a person like president bush with a virtually -- he's kind of an empty suit in a sense. the things that -- >> host: al, why do you say he's an empty suit? >> caller: well, it's pretty obviously when you rely on looking into other foreign leaders eyes for direction, as he did with pout -- putin, you can't rely on education or history or something of a more serious nature. you are liable to repeat the cycle drama where you try to outdo your father. you know, and in history. >> host: let's get a response from karl rove. >> guest: first of all, before 9/11 we weren't as safe as we

are after 9/11. i think he put his finger on one of them. we had a divide between the fbi and cia not being able to share information. we weren't able to act upon information that the cia might have or the fbi might have the other one might be able to shed a light on how dangerous that was. after 9/11 we took down the so-called wall had been elected by assistant attorney general that said you cannot share cia and fbi can't share information. we had to do one thing after 9/11 that would make us safer and could only do one thing, that would be it. but lots of other things were done. for example, before 9/receive and patriot act, you have have a roving wiretap, use them and disregard them. but not on a terrorist. we could use a sneak and peak

warrant on say a mafia figure, an organizized crime figure, but not on a terrorist. we could use a business records research to get at a records of doctor suspected of medicare, but not on a terrorist. we did things after 9/11. after a large bipartisan vote and just renewed the patriot act that gave us the tools to make the country more safe. look, the idea of a psychodrama. i don't think al sounded like a licensed therapist. even if he was. i don't think al particularly has sat in a room and a interviewed of the father of the son. it's typical of the people on the left. let's go back to the only specific thing. i'm going to ignore the psychodrama thing. let's go to the one specific thing, which was a comment by president bush when he's asked at a press conference when he's meeting with putin for the first time and associated press

reporter says to president bush, do you trust him? and you're standing there with the leader of russia. you're trying to establish a good working relationship with this major power. you jolt choices. you could say yes or no. bush choice yes. imagine what would have happened if he had equivocated and said, you know, what, i don't know if i can trust him. what if he said no? what kind of personal relationship and what kind of diplomatic relationship would the united states have on the major power? so i think the president took the right tone. which was to say, i think we can have a good relationship with him. i looked in his eyes and i believe we can trust him. that's the way in which you establish a personal relationship which will help further the diplomatic with a major power. did we think he was our friend and ally on each and every moment? no. were we weary? you bet we were. in diplomacy, it's important to

establish the relationship on as strong of a footing as possible. that's what you write. >> host: you write about his management style. his frat boy attitude was his way of concludes a bad meeting on the good note. it left the impression that he was board when in truth the meeting needed to end. >> guest: it's interesting. al mentioned history. bush was a history major at yale. he was a harvard mba. couple of years ago, john louis, the famous cold war historian was speaking at yale. having been bush's teacher at yale, he was impressed with the cast of his mind, his ability, his thought process, how smart and able he was. he shared these reflections with the yale alumni group which sounded a lot like al. dismissive of it. but it's a -- it is in part a failing that bushes on himself by playing the good old boy from