Not Your Sweetie

__Roving Over Some Tricks of the Political Trade

Helen Thomas writes: "The late Martha Mitchell, wife of the disgraced Attorney General John
Mitchell whose Watergate crimes landed him in prison, used to say that politics is a 'dirty
business.' I was reminded that her point is still valid today after reading a new book called Boy
Genius about Karl Rove, the brains behind George W. Bush's victories in the 2000 and 2002
elections. Boy Genius, which refers to a nickname Bush bestowed on Rove, was written by
political reporters Lou Dubose, Jan Reid and Carl M. Cannon. They note that Rove, Bush's
political and policy guru, says his lifelong hero is Richard Nixon, the president who ordered the
government cover-up of the 1972 GOP break-in at the national Democratic headquarters in the
Watergate office building."