Salon: One Minute from Abnormal (Karen Hughes' obsession with *)

MODS: I MEANT TO POST THIS IN "EDITORIALS." PLEASE MOVE?

A Texas reporter explores Karen Hughes' cultlike devotion to George W. Bush.

By James C. Moore

(snip)

The first time I noticed an indication of a radio frequency bouncing between the brains of Bush and Hughes was during Gov. Bush's initial State of the State speech in Texas. Still a simple press hack, Hughes did not take to the riser in the Texas House of Representatives, instead standing off to the side, behind the shiny brass railing rimming the chamber's floor.

"Look at Karen," I said, nudging a colleague.

"Oh, my God. You've got to be kidding me."

As Gov. Bush read the text of his speech from a teleprompter, his communications director was silently mouthing the words along with him. The synchronized delivery suggested a parent sitting in the audience of an elementary school pageant while mouthing forgotten lines as her child stood dumbstruck onstage.

"Do you suppose she has any idea how odd that looks?" my friend asked.

"If she does, I don't think she cares. She seems to just want her guy to do well."

(snip)

I have worked around Hughes from the time she was an energetic reporter at KXAS-TV in Dallas/Fort Worth, and even if I had been watching her with nothing more than peripheral vision, I cannot avoid concluding that there is something almost pathological about her almost born-again devotion to Bush. She was a solid TV political correspondent with serviceable prose and production skills. But as a counselor and communicator for the president, she is driven in a manner that never manifested itself in her journalism. Whatever reality she, Rove and Bush choose to manufacture, Hughes believes in it more than the reality of any and all contradictory external information. And God help any journalist or analyst whose interpretation or reportage of facts varies with her version of events.

more…
http://salon.com/opinion/feature/2004/05/13/karen/index.html

Somehow it isn't hard to picture her standing off to the side in the Abu Ghraib prison, either.

Mouthing the words.

Presidential counselor Karen Hughes speaks at Bush-Cheney campaign event.

OMG! One of the BEST reads I've had in this political season so far. It's worth watching the little ad in order to get access to the piece. You won't regret it. Bush and Karen, now Bush and Condi.. he's a busy guy.

"Hughes, of course, was more than just the candidate's remote-control device. Her portfolio included creating the messages and sound bites -- turning the phrases Bush was later very likely to overturn when he tried to articulate them in public. Hughes' great skill as a political advisor is that she is both intuitive and analytical. While her relentlessness with message delivery is all over the airwaves and in the newspapers, people often overlook Hughes' talents in message development. In the South Carolina primary campaign against presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, as Bush strategist Karl Rove deployed what Sen. Max Cleland called a "slime and defend" strategy, it was Hughes who gave the Bush team an effective communications template."

Maybe he "disturbed" them??

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2004/05/13/karen/index.html

"I guess I got in about 11 p.m.," he said. "I called Karen in her room, sort of worried that I might be waking her up. I was very polite. I said, 'Karen, I was wondering if you could give me the schedule, etc. for reporters for tomorrow.'"

"I don't do press," Hughes said.

"And then she hung up on me," the reporter said. "All I could think was she must be big stuff now. She could have at least been polite. She didn't even bother to tell me who I was supposed to call."

said * mocked the woman on death row and cursed. Karen was there for the conversation yet told him later it never happened and how she had never heard W swear. He was incredulous because she was sitting right there so they both knew it was true.

Carlon episode.

(Tucker Carlson) turned against the Iraq War today (saw it on another thread).

Interesting stuff.

That's why he goes for all these dominiatrix types like Hughes and Rice and Cheney and Rumsfeld.

And in S&M and B/D scenes, it is always the submissive that really has the power, even though the dominant person has the appearance of being in control. It's a perfect relationship, he's the faithful submissive surrounded by ambitious hungry tops salivating for control, or the illusion of it.

Ick. I grossed my own self out.

nt

Carlson, a floppy-haired antagonist of progressives, wasn't supposed to be hard on Karen's man. In fact, in an interview with Salon last year, the CNN host said his wife was worried that his story might appear to be "sucking up." Bush, knowing Carlson's political predisposition, lifted the shades hiding his true beliefs and offered a clearer view of himself to the reporter. Carlson's story described how Bush swore freely and mocked condemned death-row inmate Karla Faye Tucker. He told Salon that he was astonished by how Hughes responded to his article in Talk.

"It was very, very hostile," Carlson said. "The reaction was: You betrayed us. Well, I was never there as a partisan to begin with. Then I heard that , Karen Hughes accused me of lying. And so I called Karen and asked her why she was saying this, and she had this almost Orwellian rap that she laid on me about how things she'd heard -- that I watched her hear -- she in fact had never heard, and she'd never heard Bush use profanity ever. It was insane. I've obviously been lied to a lot by campaign operatives, but the striking thing about the way she lied was she knew I knew she was lying, and she did it anyway. There is no word in English that captures that. It almost crosses over from bravado into mental illness."

snip/

As the war on terrorism has spiraled into chaos, Hughes has begun testifying about her religion in public forums, such as in a recent speech in Austin. It's impossible to tell if she is seeking solace in her faith or trying to convince Americans that God is on our side. Unfortunately, the U.S. soldiers who are theoretically being guided by the Bush administration's Christian God are no less dead than the Iraqi insurgents and al-Qaida terrorists who believe Allah is directing them to destroy the American infidels. Neither Jesus nor Muhammad ever spoke to the concept of killing to achieve political ends, though. One assumes, in her private moments, that Hughes and the president seek forgiveness from their Creator. But they inhabit a remote, unexplored location.

In the carefully rendered world where Hughes lives, the weapons of mass destruction are not missing; they have only to be discovered. Terrorists hate freedom and liberty and equality, instead of hating Americans. A man who won a Silver Star for shedding blood for his country needs to explain himself, while a young lieutenant who skipped out on an officer's commission and a coveted pilot's slot has "served honorably." On Planet Hughes, life is returning to normal in Iraq, the horrors are diminishing and the casualties of Americans and Iraqis are not that significant. It's a happy place where presidents never make mistakes and there is never anything to be sorry about. One can almost see her in the back of the room, her mouth rounded with expression and secretly moving in unison with the president as he speaks the words "Donald Rumsfeld is a superb secretary of defense."

After all of the troops have come home, a powerful cleric is ruling Iraq with a theocratic government and Bush has been retired to his ranch by an angry electorate, the president's closest friend will be undaunted. Years from now, when historians begin to insist that Iraq was the greatest geopolitical mistake ever made by an American president, she will be there disputing their interpretations.

*************************************
This is a most telling article. People who don't have subscriptions to Salon can watch a couple of ads and then read the whole thing. I suggest everyone read this.

I was not aware that she had declared us "pro choicers" terrorists on Wolf Blitzer's show.

This is a great article. Read it.

This denial of reality that they both know is true reminds me of someone who would do this same thing - you would see them do something, confront them, and they deny it. It is like they decide in their head that as long as they don't admit it, it never happened.

Or, run of the mill group-think. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Wolfowitz, Ashcroft, et al. They've bot their own little mutual-admiration society going.

I can't stand Hughes!!! :mad: Thanks!:D

Bingo

:mad:

Inevitably, either discomfort or romance arises from this kind of codependency. While Bush was running for president and the miles and days clicked off on the campaign trail, the candidate and his word worker were inseparable. Hughes appeared in almost every photo of the candidate. On each flight to the next venue, she sat next to him, leaning in to talk, confide and counsel. This kind of intimacy might lead lesser adults into precarious territory. Bush and Hughes, however, were oblivious to the growing perception among the traveling press entourage that they were more than just friends and political confederates. When someone finally advised them of how their kinship might be misinterpreted, the campaign responded with an odd maneuver. Hughes brought her son onto the campaign jet and home-schooled him out on the hustings.

"It's a once-in-a-lifetime experience for him," she told reporters. "He wants to go everywhere I go."

The press corps suspected, though, that Hughes' son's arrival on the plane was a direct message to us and the wider world that there was no hanky-panky between her and the boss man. The fact that this development coincided with an increased profile in the campaign by Laura Bush was probably a part of the same communications strategy.

Now, what's the story with Condi?

"When I turned and left the stage, she followed me, insistently repeating her assertions. Political reporters told me the next day that Hughes had spent some time at the hotel bar that night ridiculing my choice of questions to Bush. Nothing has changed since then about Hughes and her devotion to the president -- except for the degree of her obsessive connection to him."

"No one in Austin had any illusion that Hughes might grow more independent with her much-publicized return home two years ago. In fact, that decision is often viewed cynically by Democrats, some of whom accuse her of making a marketing rather than a personal decision. By walking away from an office in the White House, Hughes became an "Oprah" topic: Possibly History's Most Powerful Female Not Married to a President Abandons Post for Sake of Family. She didn't really walk away, though. Her husband and son changed their mailing addresses by returning to Austin, but Hughes has been incessantly in Washington or on the road promoting her expansive love note to her president, "Ten Minutes From Normal." Bush reportedly speaks with her every day, at least once, no matter where Hughes is traveling. In Texas, one lobbyist who had worked closely with the governor and his "governess" suggested that Bush appears to need Hughes' approval. That represents a meaningless endorsement, since she clearly thinks he can do no wrong."

into his earpiece??

...good point~I had not considered that!

:yourock:

on video: Karen mouthing, Bush speaking.

She was just a nothin' little ole local reporter for Channel 5. Her bizarre way of talking like she had a mouth full of marbles used to entertain the hell out of my family. "Hey, Mom, come and see Karen Parfitt, she's on! Hurry!" She was just such a weird flake. Then I moved away from Texas, and next thing I know, Bush is running for president and I spotted this weird dame with him early in the campaign. They were saying "Karen Hughes" but I did a double-take because, OH MY GOD, IT'S KAREN PARFITT! If you had told me 20 years ago that she would become a presidential confidant, much less his communications point person, I would have said you were clinically insane. She's a flaky little nobody with nothing to offer the world, and she's glommed on to Bush to give meaning to her life. Strange!

the Chimp went to, asking whether we should go to war.

all of them. Dragging her kid around to diffuse rumors of affair was pretty twisted.