How do we know "Turd Blossom" is Rove's nickname? What is its meaning?

[CoffeeCat]

I was wondering how it became public that Bush's nickname for Rove is "Turd Blossom"?

Is this completely true?

Also...what does it mean, exactly?

Personally, I find it rather that name rather perverted. It's a name that could only come out of the mouth of a potty-mouthed, gum-smackin 2th-grade boy who is oblivious to how crass everyone finds him.

Everyone probably went to school with a kid like this--he was the one with dried chili stains on his Toughskins.

I mean, how presidential is it for a grown man--the leader of the free world--to come up something like that?

It's kinda of perverse. I mean--I've been in board rooms and at city council meetings and I've worked closely with staff members on community projects and election campaigns--and I just can't envision and adult I know pegging someone with that name--or even saying the words "Turd Blossom".

It's kind of mind boggling when you think about it.

I'm not a prude. I wouldn't be so uneasy, if Rove's nickname was "Fuckhead", "Dirtbag" or "Satan's Spawn". Those names are at least on a frat-boy level.

I wonder what the nickname means?

[bushisanidiot]

1. Translation: it means he's AWOL Bush's butt-boy

it gets lonely in the white house since jeffie gannon isn't allowed through the front door anymore

[Bucky]

2. The BradBlog interviewed a friend of Rove and confirmed the nickname

Bush really calls him that, according to this post from the BradBlog.

[DURHAM D]

3. It is the flower(s) that grow up out of a deposit of cow dung. eom

[InternalDialogue]

4. From the movie "Bush's Brain"

(not sure that it didn't appear before in printed material, but that's where I heard the explanation), it was Bush's nickname for Rove due to his miraculous ability to rescue a positive result from a bad situation -- a blossom from a turd, as it were.

[greekspeak]

5. Just think of him as a Dumbya Blossom

"He can make flowers grow out of a turd" is equal to "He can make flowers grow out of Curious George." A wonderful lesson in Synonyms!

Of course the blossoms are growing out of the turds that are daily burying the American people. I guess that from under all the stench they are supposed to smell the flowers?

[connecticut yankee]

6. I think it refers

to an old expression -- "he can reach into a pile of s--t and pull out a flower."

[Schweeney]

7. In Rove's own words

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55040-2004Dec10.html

The Most Fascinating Karl Rove

Barbara Walters the other night unveiled her choice for the most fascinating person of 2004. Karl Rove.

Dana Stevens writes in Slate: "Walters' interview with Rove, like all the rest, was about as hard-hitting as the warm-up questions asked before a polygraph test: 'Are you Karl Rove?' 'Yes.' 'Correct!' But it nonetheless gave the viewer some glimpse of what drives the notoriously ruthless Republican strategist. He describes his childhood as a miniature policy wonk, chuckling, 'I was a very weird child. . . . I mean, talk about a sad little guy.' Rove campaigned for Richard Nixon at the age of 8 and wrote fifth-grade research papers about 'dialectical materialism.'" (Read: Young Karl was writing anti-Communist screeds, yet another throwback to the '80s.)"

Here's how the segment on Rove opened:

Walters: "The President has nicknamed you 'boy genius.' You're often referred to as "Bush's brain." But I understand the President has another nickname for you that's not quite as appealing."

Rove: "Yes. Turd blossom."

Walters: "Turd blossom. So attractive. What does it mean?"

Rove: "Well, it's a Texas phrase. In the west Texas plains, wild flowers will spring up through nature's natural fertilizer, shall we say."

[bush_is_wacko]

8. I think it is something the effect that he can make flowers blossom

from shit....

I may be mistaken but that is what it sounds like to me.