"Karen," Bruni asked, "did the governor really try to raise taxes on all of these businesses?"

Hughes looked at the Forbes materials.

"Frank, Governor Bush is responsible for the largest single tax cut in Texas history at 3 billion dollars."

"I know," Bruni said. "I've heard that a lot. But did he try to increase taxes on these companies before he cut them with the homestead exemption?"

"As I said, Frank, Governor Bush made history with the largest tax cut ever recorded in Texas."

Bruni, frustrated, looked in my direction briefly.

"OK, I'll ask you again: Did Governor Bush try to raise taxes on the companies listed on this document?"

Unflagging, Hughes stuck with her message, almost verbatim, and Bruni shrugged his shoulders and walked off. He had been worn out by the message discipline of the High Prophet, the nickname Bush had given her as a derivative of her married name of Karen Parfitt Hughes.

She was as capable at preemptive political attacks on opponents and journalists as she was with tactical defense. I found this out in 1994 as a panelist on a debate broadcast statewide between Bush and his gubernatorial opponent, Ann Richards. Having come of age during the Vietnam War, I thought I would ask Bush how he managed to get into the Texas Air National Guard when most waiting lists were years long. Only seconds after the red tally lights had gone out on the cameras, Hughes was looming in front of me, acting as if I owed her an explanation for my question.

"What was that all about, Jim? I don't see what that has to do with being governor. That was just an absurd question. Why'd you ask such a thing?"

"His behavior during that time is relevant, Karen. It's about character. You know that."

"No, I don't. He's not asking to run the federal government. He wants to be governor of Texas. He's not going to declare war on Mexico."

Initially, I thought she was trying to playfully badger me. But her face was dark and her mouth and eyes had hardened at the edges.

"Look, Karen, I lost friends in Vietnam. I had a right and an obligation to ask him about what he did back then."

When I turned and left the stage, she followed me, insistently repeating her assertions. Political reporters told me the next day that Hughes had spent some time at the hotel bar that night ridiculing my choice of questions to Bush. Nothing has changed since then about Hughes and her devotion to the president -- except for the degree of her obsessive connection to him.

No one in Austin had any illusion that Hughes might grow more independent with her much-publicized return home two years ago. In fact, that decision is often viewed cynically by Democrats, some of whom accuse her of making a marketing rather than a personal decision. By walking away from an office in the White House, Hughes became an "Oprah" topic: Possibly History's Most Powerful Female Not Married to a President Abandons Post for Sake of Family. She didn't really walk away, though. Her husband and son changed their mailing addresses by returning to Austin, but Hughes has been incessantly in Washington or on the road promoting her expansive love note to her president, "Ten Minutes From Normal." Bush reportedly speaks with her every day, at least once, no matter where Hughes is traveling. In Texas, one lobbyist who had worked closely with the governor and his "governess" suggested that Bush appears to need Hughes' approval. That represents a meaningless endorsement, since she clearly thinks he can do no wrong.

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