“I think some people had given him up for dead, but he was good old Karl, upbeat and enthusiastic,” says GOP activist Grover Norquist, who hosts the weekly sit-down. At the meeting Rove previewed Bush’s final two years in office, saying Social Security reform was likely off the table and that Iraq and the economy would be the biggest issues for 2008. Rove offered a $5 bet to anyone in the room that Bush would not raise taxes during his final years in office. According to Norquist, two attendees took the bet. Norquist admits he’s also skeptical about Rove’s taxes claim. “I personally think it’s going to happen,” he tells NEWSWEEK. Rove has been busy trying to find common ground with Dems, organizing two meetings between Bush and the Blue Dog Democrats, a coalition of conservative lawmakers who offer the White House its best chance at compromise with the new Congress. Rove also sat in on many of Bush’s meetings with members of Congress in recent weeks about Iraq; he didn’t say much, according to one attendee who requested anonymity because the meeting was private. Still, the Architect, as Bush dubbed him after his 2004 re-election win, was notably absent from last week’s Republican National Committee meetings in Washington, where last year he delivered a blistering attack on “cut and run” Dems. “I don’t know anyone who holds him personally responsible for what happened to us in the election,” said a GOP national committee member, who declined to be named talking about the inner circle. “But his stature isn’t quite the same.” The big question in D.C. now: Will Rove testify at Lewis (Scooter) Libby’s criminal trial over the leak of a CIA officer’s identity? Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, who ruled out charges against Rove in the case, has said he won’t call the top Bush aide, but Libby, Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff, hasn’t ruled it out.
