Complaints are building about the Creve Coeur Club bringing Karl Rove as its Washington Day banquet speaker, and the grumbling ranges from whines that the CCC “always brings in Republicans” to condemnation of Rove himself.

Rove is scheduled to appear at the Par-A-Dice Hotel on February 22.

As to the gripe that yet another Republican will be the featured guest: The many speakers the CCC has brought to central Illinois since 1899 have included military leaders, bishops, famous coaches, media and entertainment figures, and – yes – some Democrats.

The controversial Rove and I almost crossed paths in 1970, when he posed as a volunteer for Illinois Democrat Adlai Stevenson III in a Senate race and circulated a letter to homeless people advertising “free food, beer, girls and a good time for all” at a Stevenson event. Stevenson defeated his Republican opponent, Ralph Smith, who I and several campus activists “endorsed” in a bit of Yippie guerrilla theater (which at least once Chicago newspaper covered).

As to Rove’s checkered career: There’s some merit to the criticism. According to Lou Dubose, co-author of “Boy Genius: The Brains Behind the Remarkable Political Triumph of George W. Bush,” Rove controversies have included “a whispering campaign that described Texas Gov. Ann Richards as a closet lesbian; an announcement that two aides working for Texas Agriculture Commissioner Jim Hightower would be indicted before Justice Department lawyers announced the indictments); rumors of John McCain’s illegitimate black child that circulated in South Carolina after McCain defeated George W. Bush in the 2000 New Hampshire primary; rumors about Cindy McCain’s drug habit; and a national media campaign that turned John Kerry’s service in Vietnam into a liability.”

Rove also taught Nixon-style “dirty tricks” to College Republicans in the mid-’70s, according to the Washington Post. Rove was investigated by the Republican National Committee, cleared and hired by RNC Chair George H. W. Bush to work for him.

After directing Bill Clements’s successful gubernatorial campaign in 1978, Rove in 1986 mailed a fake newspaper story detailing a DWI arrest of Clements’s Democratic opponent. Then – on the day of the gubernatorial debate – Rove reported that his office was bugged. Later, a source in the Travis County District Attorney’s office said Rove himself hired a Fort Worth firm to bug his own office. The FBI agent questioned Rove.

More recently, Rove was involved in the long campaign to discredit the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), the firings of U.S. Attorneys, the outrageous prosecution and imprisonment of former Arkansas Gov. Don Siegelman, and efforts to suppress the vote.

Most obviously, Rove exploited the U.S. Supreme Court’s terrible Citizens United decision essentially granting corporations the rights of human beings, and he launched well-funded Super PACs (political action committees) Crossroads GPS and American Crossroads. The ruling allows corporations to underwrite campaigns through outside groups like those controlled by Rove, and allows some donors to conceal their identities.

However, although Crossroads reportedly raised about $300 million and spent more than $175 million against President Obama and Democrats running for the Senate, just two of the candidates to whom it contributed won (Dean Heller won in Nevada; Deb Fischer won in Nebraska).

(Sports fans will note that Rove’s “winning percentage” is 1.3, meaning he and Crossroads lost 98.7% of the time.)

Deputy Chief of Staff during the second term of George W. Bush’s administration, Rove is now a high-profile contributor to Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal and Fox News.

That mattered to CCC’s com mittee that selects speakers. A board member said that while Republicans have been frequent speakers, there’s no litmus test.

“We just want to put butts in the seats,” the Creve Coeur Club leader said.

Indeed, Creve Coeur Club speakers have been heavily Republican, including baseball commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis; Sens. James E. Watson, Kenneth S. Wherry, Everett Dirksen, Howard Baker, Bob Dole, Alan Simpson, and John McCain; Vice Presidents Richard Nixon, George H. W. Bush and Dan Quayle; cabinet officials George Schultz, James Baker and Dick Cheney; Govs. Jim Thompson and Jim Edgar; tycoons David Rockefeller and Steve Forbes (the one-time presidential candidate); and President Gerald Ford.

However, a few Republicans who spoke at the CCC Washington Day Banquet were moderate, independent or even Teddy Roosevelt progressives, such as James R. Garfield, U.S. Rep. John Anderson, and William Ruckelshaus. The few Democrats included another baseball commissioner, Albert “Happy” Chandler, Gov. Otto Kerner, Federal Reserve Chair Paul Volcker, UN Ambassador Bill Richardson, and Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley and his brother William Daley (ex Commerce Secretary and President Obama’s Chief of Staff).

The proper response to offensive speech, of course, is not censorship – it’s MORE SPEECH. So if progressives or Democrats want a meaningful alternative voice to speak on politics and current events in central Illinois, they should put on their big-boy pants and book someone, promote him or her, and pack the place.

Certainly, Rove and cohorts including disgraced Enron lobbyist Ed Gillespie raised hundreds of millions from Wall Street, polluters and the wealthy, which Rove foreshadowed when he announced his intention to change how campaigns were run. At least he’s been consistent in his divisive approach, but he didn’t create it.

“The extraordinary partisanship exhibited by Republicans today did not arise until Newt Gingrich,” said “Great Depression” author Robert McElvaine, writing in the Christian Science Monitor. “Karl Rove continued the strategy during the presidency of George W. Bush.”

Arguably, it’s not working for Republicans.

Norman Ornstein and Thomas Mann, two moderate congressional scholars, in their book “It’s Even Worse than It Looks” wrote, “The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.”

However, there may be a schism in the GOP. Rove’s been blasted by the likes of radio blowhard Rush Limbaugh, who said Rove’s criticism of the Tea Party showed that “on the Republican side there are divisions and jealousies and egos and competition,” and cable host (and former GOP presidential candidate) Mike Huckabee, who knocked Rove on the air.

“Unfortunately, there is an elitism within the Republican establishment,” Huckabee said, “and it’s one of the reasons the Republicans have not been able to solidify not only the Tea Party movement but solidify conservatives across America, because a lot of people know it is not so much about the principles of really controlling government and having responsible people in office, it’s about making sure the right people get into the game to play.”

For tickets, time and other details, phone Creve Coeur Club manager Wendy Mitchell at 672-2267.

Contact Bill at Bill.Knight@hotmail.com; his twice-weekly columns are archived at billknightcolumn.blogspot.com