I haven't been here in a while but I still like to challenge some of you with concepts and I love to "get a reading" on how well many of you sift through the political nuances that tend to fool both the casual political observer and even the veteran political pundits in the media.

As a Texan, I was first alerted to the sheer genius of Karl Rove when he worked for the Bill Clements campaign. Rove helped orchestrate the Republican's successful Texas gubernatorial race against veteran Democrat Mark White. His first machinations seemed clumsy but they were still on par with the cleverness he has always demonstrated.

While some might think him evil, I look at Rove as a pseudo-Christian who simply has no deep-seeded sense of morality or ethics. Furthermore, I have to assume that the only restraints to what I consider to be genuine sociopathic behavior seem to rest in whether or not his actions have the desired effects for his candidate in a particular scenario.

Sorry for the long setup but a few more things are needed to properly ask the questions for debate.

Here is a link that explains the controversy surrounding an incident in that 1986 campaign and even though the article is authored by the late Molly Ivins, it does do a decent job of revealing recorded testimony during a subsequent interview with Mr. Rove.

For the sake of those of you who do not want to do the lengthy research necessary to opine on this incident, Ivins' recap of the testimony and this synopsis of the general details might be all you'll need (at least for the debate questions).

Link to the Ivins story: http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0418-26.htm

Synopsis: Rove and/or a private security firm "discover" a listening device in Rove's office. Eventually an FBI agent is involved but the press was alerted almost instantaneously. What was later found to be puzzling about the incident was Rove's accompanying rhetorical questioning and commenting about how the Democrats seemed to always know Republican plans almost as quickly as those plans were made.

Later analysis that is available on the www purported that the device was battery powered and in those days before advances in both circuitry and memory storage, it was estimated that the battery in the listening device hidden behind a picture in Mr. Rove's locked office would have to have been changed at least once a day to record 8 hours of "eavesdropping".

That fact didn't really come out until long after the election and even then it took a while for someone to ask why the device wasn't "hard wired" to a power source since the battery would have to be changed once a day. If, as Rove would have liked everyone to believe, it had been planted by a group of nefarious Watergate-like "Plumbers", there would have had to have been a new burglary every day to change the battery in the device. From then on, I paid lots of attention to where Rove had his hands while his lips were moving.

Here is a movie site that reviews "Bush's Brain". Among many other sources, the Bush's Brain movie chronicles the eavesdropping event. http://www.boston.com/movies/display?displ...vie&id=7298

Now, with the stage properly set and the earliest purported evidence in Rove's career placed in your minds to duly note his supposed mastery of dirty tricks (some of them like this one and the McCain illegitimate child whisper phone calls in 2000 that turned South Carolina to Bush are legendary.). None of them can really be positively linked to Rove except in observing that they match the campaigns in which he played a major part.

Now to the set up of the debate questions.

We all remember the Alito and Roberts nomination processes and the inter-party disagreement that the media was tending to emphasize.

Correct me if I am wrong but after casting less dominant headlines aside, weren't they trying to write about the pulse of the country and the confirmation questioning as it pertained to a theme they had distilled to drive the nation's interest in the story? Wasn't that source of controversy the eventual vote that might overturn Rove v. Wade? (Not the question for debate yet)

Weren't the questions most anticipated and predicted with Roberts, Alito and Miers, those that asked liberals how these potential jurists might negatively affect Roe v. Wade and wasn't that same issue the thrust of those media question to influential pro-life advocates and evangelicals? (Not the debate question yet - but close)

During this time, the only other real objections with any of the nominees other than experience seemed to be just a slight amount of concern about Roberts' role in the writing briefs that were favorable to some Republican corporate contributors.

Last paragraph. I promise. Given Bush's prophetic gubernatorial promise to make Texas a "Business-Friendly State" coupled with his rush to deregulate insurers, energy, oil, coal and utility companies as well as many other businesses in Texas, does the title of this thread now finally let you see what I am suggesting?

My questions for debate (please excuse all my long sentences and forgive me if they are run-on):

1. Did Karl Rove discover that big business was the key to both winning and controlling elections through massive influxes of lobby and PAC donations and therefore deliberately feed the media all sorts of potentially inflammatory propaganda about Roe v. Wade to frame the confirmation debate around evangelicals versus pro-choice advocates? If so, do you think he knew that candidates Alito, Roberts and Miers would not be so dead set against Roe v. Wade as to cause a huge Democratic backlash or be so pro-life that they would fail to be confirmed? (To believe this you must also think that he was calculating enough to realize that Alito and Roberts would not alienate evangelicals completely although the evangelicals were not overly pleased with any of the nominees and actually helped can Miers' chances.)

2. Do you think that Rove is capable of such cunning or do you think he had little to do with the process even though we now know he was involved up to his eyeballs in the U.S. Attorney fiasco that actually revolved around judicial activism on behalf of business interests some of which had been prosecuted by the attorneys fired (i.e. Randy "Duke" Cunningham and others)? Also please explain why business deregulation and to some extent, tort reform, have been hallmarks of all Rove's campaigns to date.

3. Do you think Rove is basically innocent and was maligned unfairly for things he did not do just because he was successful at winning elections? (To answer this in the affirmative, you must address and refute the many accusations that he or his operatives were involved in the various schemes from 1986 all the way through the U.S. Attorney scandal and the Plame leak.)

4. Do you think that when it comes to politics, the end justifies the means?

1. Did Karl Rove discover that big business was the key to both winning and controlling elections through massive influxes of lobby and PAC donations and therefore deliberately feed the media all sorts of potentially inflammatory propaganda about Roe v. Wade to frame the confirmation debate around evangelicals versus pro-choice advocates?

No. Bush's Brian was in office in 2001 when Campaign Finance went through. If it were that important to him, Bush would have vetoed that bill too.
Did they pander big time to big businessthough? You bet. Farm subsidies hit before the first tax cut I believe.

????? Everybody knows Campaign Finance Reform was a toothless measure and that the Ethics committee was even "neutered" for a while. How can you answer so briefly when the guy who a televangelist later consoled by saying "God does his best work right after a crucifixion" was still operating outside campaign finance laws. I don't think Bush or Rove worried one single bit about Campaign Finance Reform because it was a non-factor.

I'm interested in the pattern of stacking the court to forever prevent successful anti-corporate litigation as they did in Texas long before they got to Washington.

Texas is now one of the hardest states in which to certify a class in the nation.

You didn't see the "pump fake" as drawing attention over scrutinizing Alito and Roberts toward their Roe v. Wade potential votes to obscure the real reason they were appointed?

I don't think it was necessarily Rove's doing, although I don't know much about the guy, so much as the Bush administration just trying to find a pro-life candidate for the last judiciary appointment. The best ones were getting attacked by rabid abortionists so the administration kept having to go more and more out of its way to find one who'd fit the harsh demands of the Democrats.

Would you please define "rabid abortionist" for us. Do you include people who don't particularly like the idea of abortion, but recognize that a woman has some rights over her reproductive system?

It is the job of the U, S. Senate to screen presidential appointments. I will predict that if Bush gets another U. S. Supreme Court appointment before he leaves office, he will not be able to get nominees like John Roberts and Samuel Alito through the senate.