Book: Bush told reporter Jews are 'all going to hell'

An upcoming book about presidential advisor Karl Rove reports allegations of anti-Semitism by President George W. Bush, RAW STORY has learned.

In The Architect: Karl Rove and the Master Plan for Absolute Power, Austin-based journalist James Moore and Wayne Slater, senior political reporter for the The Dallas Morning News, will allege that Bush once made anti-Semitic comments to a reporter.

"You know what I'm gonna tell those Jews when I get to Israel, don't you Herman?" a then Governor George W. Bush allegedly asked a reporter for the Austin American-Statesman.

When the journalist, Ken Herman, replied that he did not know, Bush reportedly delivered the punch line: "I'm telling 'em they're all going to hell."

Bush's thoughts on the fate of non-Christian souls became a minor source of controversy after he told the Houston Post in 1993 that only those who "accept Jesus Christ" go to Heaven. However, the future president was also earlier briefly engaged to a half-Jewish woman.

The quip never received wider media attention, even though the Austin American-Statesman reported it in December of 1998.

"As he gazed out a hotel hallway at the Superdome and waited for an elevator, Bush -- clearly going for a laugh at his own expense -- said the first thing he was going to say to Israeli Jews was that they were all 'going to hell,'" Herman had reported. "Bush, who has both a quick wit and generally good judgment on when to use it, made the comment to the same Austin American-Statesman reporter who had reported his 1993 comments about his religious beliefs."

The authors of The Architect assert that religion and ethnicity have been manipulated by Bush and Rove to "divide" and "conquer" the nation. RAW STORY obtained a copy of The Architect late this week.

More information about the book, to be released Tuesday, can be found here.