Karl Rove Visits GW

Last Friday Karl Rove, former Deputy Chief of Staff and Senior Advisor to President George W. Bush spoke before students in the Elliot School's Harry Harding auditorium. Affectionately regarded by event organizers as the "architect" of the war on global terrorism, literature distributed at the event praised Rove's role in "liberating more than 50 million people from two regimes…taking the unprecedented steps to stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction…[and] championing the No Child Left Behind Act."

Rove, now a Fox News contributor, focused his prepared speech on the 2008 Presidential Election, questioning Barack Obama's attacks on his former boss President Bush. Rove alleges that members of Congress were also convinced that weapons of mass destruction were in Iraq. Rove later acknowledged that the intelligence leading to war was incorrect, but did not offer an apology, instead insisting that regardless of the past the administration must focus on the status quo.

Rove, also notable for his role in George W. Bush's Texas gubernatorial campaigns, was twice interrupted by protesters. The first, a single individual shouted an explicative before being led away by University and Metropolitan police. The second, a group of four students were removed upon unfurling a banner reading "war criminal" and reading article six of the Nuremberg trial proceedings. A separate protest outside the Elliot school attracted about a dozen participants.

Following the speech a number of GW students posted questions to Mr. Rove, answering them in detail and once offering an anecdote of his time in the White House. Rove did not remain accessible to the public after the event.

The event was sponsored by GW's chapter of Young America's Foundation, a student organization focused on the advancement of conservative values. Past guests to campus have included Ann Coulter, John Ascroft, David Horowitz, and Newt Gingrich.

-Jesse Regis