This puzzle was created for Karl Rove, the super-enigmatic White House operative who has sometimes been referred to as “Bush’s Brain” (although whether this is flattering or not to either man has always been an open question).
Across
1. There’s no time to lie here while running a government
5. Letters snooty college kids have on the jackets
9. Part of the peritoneum attached to the stomach and to the colon and covering the intestines (oh, look it up!)
13. Freedom prix or freedom idee
14. Julia who starred in films I never had time to watch
15. POTUS loves her, although I just don’t see what the big whup is (not that I would ever tell him that!)
16. The first victim of poor policy options
17. _______far as…
18. The only place to end up, in politics or sexual relations
19. Don’t tell me your stories about Aunt Bertha’s hernia operation financially ruining your family, because I cannot do this
21. Claim to be cutting it while actually increasing it to reward your campaign supporters
23. Talking to the press is like walking these of the Cross (abbreviation)
24. A Spanish song I’m told was popular with hippies
25. The enemy
27. Freedom sad
31. Flows out
34. Divide your enemies so that you can leave them here
37. Strange creature that lives in 34 across
38. We believe that things are absolute, black and white, fer us or agin us, not this (abbreviation)
39. Whitewater was one; the firing of US Attorneys wasn’t
41. A loser, even if he is now popular for championing the environment
42. One reptile who would be President
44. I have been compared to him: I can’t use a light saber, but he’s much older (much, much older)
45. POTUS doesn’t do this to his hair (one of the ways he differs from Reagan)
46. English country landowner
48. Clinton
50. Japanese car I don’t drive
53. Changes to social security were not this, regardless of what the jackals in the press (and their economist stooges) said
56. The best thing to have when confronting an enemy
59. You lead on the issues; you never do this
61. Successful politician or belly button
62. Past (to be used selectively)
64. My favourite Python
65. My favourite Corleone
66. Soap or beer
67. How I like my bourbon
68. What you collect on junkets
69. Air Force Base from which F-16s and F-15s can be scrambled at a moment’s notice
70. Something POTUS never does…in public
Down
1. You can’t rule from this
2. Waits for the opportune moment to strike
3. What to do with the free market (while undercutting it for the benefit of your friends and benefactors)
4. Never give in to these unless they are in accord with your own agenda
5. Lake I hope never to live on
6. Author Amy, whom I have never read
7. We need another enemy like this
8. Partial birth abortion is the thin edge of this slippery place
9. What private foundations and think tanks serve as in getting your message out
10. Against (but, always try to turn the terms of the debate around so it seems that you are for something)
11. Japanese food I never eat
12. Nickname for a plant in the Washington press corps who talked a little too much
15. Always do this to the message
20. A pair of these cause disease
22. New Age belief I am told was popular with hippies
24. I could write about all the different ways you can steal an election, but that would turn into this (and a long one, at that)
26. Brand of computer I don’t own
28. 50 years in Iraq, at least
29. Phone or vision (to succeed, you need more of the former than the latter)
30. Units of energy
31. History will show POTUS’ to be one of the best
32. Communications technology I don’t own
33. Freedom colour
35. Ambient musician I don’t listen to
36. An unpopular measure that is attached to a necessary bill in Congress
39. With alternating coloured lines (slang)
40. American Academy of Pediatrics, another group of experts we don’t listen to when they oppose our policies
43. The only thing (much more important than doing good, whatever that is)
45. How the front-runner must approach an opportunity to debate his opponents
47. Many Congressmen could really use this course
49. Equal
51. Any policy must get this from me before being announced by POTUS
52. Leaving yourself with one of these is a sign of weakness
54. Tree I’ve never cut down
55. Tooth I’ve never had extracted
56. I’ll never feel this way about politics because I’m never going to leave it!
57. Enough, already! (archaic)
58. My first love
59. When caught doing something wrong, never ______ up
60. Moistens (in anticipation…)
63. French TV network (do I have to mention how much I watch it?)