Karl Rove to speak at the Fraser Institute Feb 18

Former White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove is coming to Vancouver next Monday, Feb. 18th, to be feted by a conservative policy institute and pick up a handsome (and undisclosed) speechmaking fee.

It'll set you back $500 (or $750 a couple) to hear George W. Bush's political guru talk about "motivating the base," or perhaps hear his opinion of Ambassador Joe Wilson and wife Valerie Plame.

Rove is being sponsored by The Fraser Institute. The institute is a 34-year-old Vancouver-based think thank renowned for its critiques of Canada's health care system, the leftist bias of its press, the influence of organized labor . . . and its diehard opposition to the Tatshenshini-Alsek Provincial Park in far-north British Columbia.