Presidential advisor Karen Hughes to speak in Pasadena

Karen Hughes, one of President George W. Bush's most trusted and longtime confidantes, is coming to Pasadena as part of the Distinguished Speaker Series. She is appearing at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium on May 25 at 8 p.m.

Hughes has worked beside President George W. Bush since, as she says, "the motorcade was only one car and he was sometimes the one driving it." As counselor to the president, she brought the working mom's perspective to the White House, often asking of President Bush's policies, "What does this mean for the average person?" The Dallas Moming News described Hughes as "the most powerful woman ever to serve in the White House". She has served as the guardian of President Bush's public message throughout his political career. "The rule of thumb in any White House is that nobody is indispensable except the president, but Karen Hughes has come as close to that description as any recent presidential aide," said The New York Times.

As counselor to the president for his first 18 months in the White House and as his communications director since he first ran for governor of Texas in 1994, Hughes has been a crucial influence in President Bush's inner circle. When he first moved to Washington, President Bush told members of the White House staff that he wanted Hughes in the room whenever any major decisions were made. During her tenure in the Bush White House, Hughes directed the White House communications apparatus and advised the president on a wide range of issues. She was responsible for overseeing the Offices of Press Secretary, Media Affairs, Speechwriting and Communications. Hughes helped develop and lead the international communications effort during the early months of the war against terror and was instrumental in creating the new White House Office of Global Communications.

Yet the move from Texas to Washington was hard on her family, and in a controversial, headline-making decision that reverberated across America, she chose to place family first and quit the nation's capital to return to Austin. There, Hughes continues to advise the president. Most recently she has been a key advisor to the president and his administration, writing speeches and developing a communications strategy for the Iraq War. She will be rejoining the Bush Administration re-election staff in mid-August.