Bush Advisor Karl Rove Hates Sweden

It's "Hate Sweden" week here at Superblog!! so let's follow up yesterday's entry with a look at Mr Karl Rove, called "Bush's Brain" by some. (Direct link to movie trailer.)

Rove is one of the most influential people in the world, yet a surprising number of people have never heard of him. As the Guardian has it:

The nerdy political brawler with only a secondary school education is now the man the president likes to call his "boy genius" - a testament to Rove's role in orchestrating Bush's rise from a feckless, hard-drinking politician's brat to Texas governor to president in barely a decade. And unlike other electoral svengalis who have gone before him, Rove has carried his power intact from the campaign bus to the White House.

Just how powerful is this man? Well...

Rove's office is tight-lipped about the extent of his duties, but the few un-vetted memoirs to have escaped from this highly disciplined administration have all portrayed him as the single most powerful figure in it, with the (possible) exceptions of the president and vice-president.

Dubya and Rove go way back. While working for George Bush Sr in the 1970s, Rove met Junior, and it was love at first sight:

"Huge amounts of charisma, swagger, cowboy boots, flight jacket, wonderful smile, just charisma - you know, wow," Rove recalled years later. In 1977, Rove was sent to Texas, in theory to run a political action committee, but according to one Texan political consultant who knew him at the time, "It was really to baby-sit Bush back when Bush was drinking".

Karl Rove Fun Fact #1: Dubya has a cute nickname for his "brain":

"Turd Blossom" - a Texanism for a flower that blooms from cattle excrement.

Karl Rove Fun Fact #2 (provided by Wikipedia):

Karl Rove is known for his strong temper and use of profanity. A frequently cited example is "We will fuck him like he's never been fucked before."

Anyway, to finally get to the point: According to Bob Woodward's book Plan of Attack (as reported by Slate)...

Karl Rove, a Norwegian-American, is obsessed with the "historical duplicity" of the Swedes, who seized Norway back in 1814. This nationalism manifests itself as hatred for Swedish weapons inspector Hans Blix.

That's real rational of you, Karl! And hey, isn't it funny that it turned out that Blix was totally right and the Bush regime was totally wrong? I think it is.

Superblog!! - Historically Duplicitous