George Rebane

Last night we attended a reception for re-elected Assemblyman Dan Logue that was held at the Southridge Event Center in Sutter.  The gathering also honored retiring State Senator Sam Aanestad for his years of service.  Sam was presented with a large commemorative resolution that will now grace the wall of his office.  But what made the evening special was that Sam, who knows Karl Rove, told Rove of all the good work that Dan has done in his short time in Sacramento.

Karl Rove, President GW Bush’s top adviser for those just in from Mars, was coming up to Napa for a well-deserved post-election respite when Sam nabbed him and convinced Mr Rove to take a little detour and speak to us for a bit on a Saturday evening.  The ‘us’ were invited guests who had supported Dan during his time in office and contributed to his re-election campaign.  Jo Ann and I were pleasantly surprised when Dan brought Karl Rove by for a shake and a howdy with us as he escorted his special guest to the podium.

After some good and mercifully short prelims, Karl Rove was introduced and began his extemporaneous monologue.  The event was off-the-record with no press people present, and only an occasional itinerant blogger there with his pen, madly scribbling away.  Therefore my report of Rove’s remarks will contain stuff that you may have heard him say on his recent media appearances and published columns.  His own ruminations about the Presidents Bush and Obama will not be included in this little summary.

Rove started by speaking of his early years in government and involvement with Radio Liberty.  Of receiving the ceremonious gratitude of Russian workers after the Fall of the Wall, workers who had listened to the broadcasts in secret and at great peril to themselves and their families.  This tied in with the rights that all Americans have to really choose their political leadership – rights which over 90 million voters exercised during these mid-terms.

The tea party movement was appropriately recognized and lauded for making the difference that it did.  Rove cited that 55% of independent voters had voted Republican, which contributed to the nationwide (sans California) landslides.  He also invited people to look at the Appendix One chart in Romer & Bernstein’s January 2009 report on stimulus job creation.  The fudging that the government has done to attempt justification of its $814B stimulus will not be heralded on MSNBC. (more here)  This job destroying legislation begs the question ‘if the claimed job creation/saving was over 3 million, why stop at $814B?’

On Obamacare the daily news just gets worse and worse.  Companies are dumping healthcare programs for the employees because their costs under the new law are skyrocketing and the fines for dropping healthcare (as intended by the Dems) are minimal.  Recently Brinker International (owner of Chili’s, Macaroni Grill, etc) announced dropping healthcare for its 25K+ employees after its projected costs increased $90+ million.  Next stop for everyone will be the rationed nationalized healthcare plan.

More of these legislative mal mots were recounted, just so that we would recall what the heartland voters knew and overcame as they went to the polls.  It was clear that only the left coasts’ voters with significant inter-aural deficits were still confused as they submitted their ballots.

Karl Rove also talked about the Bush administrations and his relationship with the President whom he had served these many years.  Rove has written about this in his memoir Courage and Consequence – My Life as a Conservative in the Fight that came out this spring.  He described the book and, after some appropriate self-deprecation, admitted that it was a “good read”.  We all received autographed copies of the book whose fly-leaf concludes –

“Rove is candid about his mistakes in the West Wing and in his campaigns, and talks frankly about the heartbreak of his early family years.  But Courage and Consequence is ultimately about the joy of a life committed to the conservative cause, a life spent in political combat and service to country, no matter the costs.”

In the process of describing the writing of his own memoir, he said that there is an even better book coming out this coming Tuesday – that of his former boss George W. Bush.  The two volumes will complement each other, both authors describing ideas, events, and happenings from perspectives that would normally be denied the other.  I very much look forward to reading both of them.

Finally, the pragmatic political pundit is a wonderful speaker.  He comes across lucid, informative in abundant detail, and sincere to connect with people who share his vision of where America has been, and more importantly, where its fulfilling destiny yet lies.  It was a truly enjoyable evening in the shadow of the Sutter Buttes.