"This is the moment I've been looking for." - Wayne Slater, Dallas Morning News political writer, in reference to seeing a woman moon George W. Bush as he did a slow roll on train through a small Illinois town. He said Bush thought it was fabulous.
The man behind "Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush" closed out Saturday's workshop with a keynote speech.
There was nothing to particularly learn from Wayne Slater's speech, then again it isn't billed as a workshop, but it was interesting nonetheless.
He talked about how they were looking for a publisher for 'Bush's Brain,' and that it was rejected one after the other. Slater said one problem they had was that no one had ever heard of Rove. As Rove gained more attention, they finally found a publisher.
But a problem arose when Slater got a tip from a friend saying another publisher had a book about Rove with the exact same title, "Bush's Brain."
"I was unhappy about this," Slater said modestly.
He understood that it's all about competition, but he thought the title was stolen in a completely unethical way. Slater really liked the title they had, and he did not want to give it up. So eventually Slater and his publisher got their way, and the other Rove book would end up being called "Boy Genius."
Slater shared some interesting tidbits about Rove. For instance, Rove was apparantly a champion debater in high school and he would use blank debate cards to intimidate the opposing debater.
"A lovely little bit of detail," Slater said.
Rove also ran for student senate in high school, and he took the campaign very seriously. During the student assembly, the day before the election, Rove rolled in with a VW convertible with two cheerleaders. The place went nuts, and it worked, Slater said.
Another interesting bit of information was that Rove is apparantly an atheist. It's sort of ironic that for a guy who centered Bush's campaign around motivating Christian conservatives is an atheist.
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