THE POLITICS OF WAR:

Pushing an Agenda, Far From Iraq (ADAM NAGOURNEY with RICHARD W. STEVENSON, 4/05/03, NY Times)

The White House portrays Karl Rove, President Bush's most influential political adviser, as playing no role in military decisions that are shaping the Bush presidency.

But more than two weeks after the war began, Mr. Rove is busily working to shape perceptions of Mr. Bush as a wartime leader and to prepare for the re-election campaign that will start as soon as the war ends.

Tonight, Mr. Rove traveled here to tend to the Republican troops at the Texas Night fund-raising celebration of the Kent County Republican Committee.

"The president is leading the coalition of the willing, and is determined that Iraq will be disarmed of its weapons of mass destruction and that the cruel dictator's regime will be ended," Mr. Rove declared after taking the stage to chants of "U.S.A.!" in a cavernous hanger filled with the local party faithful wearing Texas-style cowboy boots, hats and bandanas.

Beyond courting Republicans at party events, Mr. Rove has in recent days been counseling Congressional Republicans and conservative groups on how to advance their domestic agenda even while attention is on Iraq. [...]

Mr. Rove has always mixed a deep interest in policy with hardball politics. Before flying to Michigan for the campaign-style appearance here, he attended a White House briefing with Mr. Bush on severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, the contagious illness that has spread to North America from Asia.

Last year, in remarks that were assailed by Democrats as an effort to politicize the campaign against terrorism, he urged Republicans to "go to the country" on the issue of national security because voters "trust the Republican Party to do a better job of protecting and strengthening America's military might and thereby protecting America."

It''s worth noting that were Republicans not in control of the White House and Congress there might not have been a war on terror after the Taliban fell (even the Democrats would have had to do that much post-9/11). So, if you think the war on terror is an important issue, it's necessary to keep an eye on Republican political fortunes. War can't be both too important for politics to enter into the equation and completely dependent on politics. Posted by Orrin Judd at April 5, 2003 10:55 PM