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If there was truly any justice in this world, Karl Rove would be cooling his heels in some very uncomfortable room in The Hague, Netherlands right now. Instead, he has jumped from the sinking ship of the Bush White House to a cushy job as a pundit on FOXNews. But even as a pundit, on Monday's Verdict, Dan Abrams has noted a peculiar tendency on the part of Bush's Brain to sound exactly like a partisan political propagandist. Case in point: Rove was kind enough to give some "advice" to Barack Obama that read for all the world as a whisper campaign on Obama's perceived weakness.
But inside that Beltway Bubble, Karl Rove finding gainful employment giving his opinion on Democratic candidates hardly raises an eyebrow. In fact, Tucker Carlson loves him some Rovian punditry:
Well, I’ve seen him a couple of times on the tube. I think he’s excellent, actually. He’s better than I thought he would be. He’s got smart and incisive things to say. Look, the thing about Rove is it’s actually a more honest situation than most. I mean, in a lot of cases you’ve got people—most journalists obviously are liberal Democrats—and most sort of try their best to be objective. You kind of have to guess about whether they’re achieving objectivity or not. With Rove, it’s Karl Rove! You know, like you know exactly who he is, you know where he’s coming from. A smart person takes that into account. Even a dumb person takes that into account. And so, everything’s kind of out on the table and you can evaluate what he says and turn on your BS monitor and if some of it sounds like spin, you take that into account. But I’ve been kind of impressed, being in the pundit business myself for a while, by how good the guy is. Watch him, he’s good! Actually.
Uh no, actually. Only Roy Sekoff of the Huffington Post seems to get that someone who is responsible for so much of what is wrong with this country and so many criminal acts does not deserve to continue to get a national platform from which to practice and further his divisive ways. Of course if being "wrong" was the metric to ensure not being on TV, Tucker would have been vanquished off by 1994. Most journalists are liberal Democrats, Tucker? You idiot, Karl Rove is on FOXNews. Are you telling me they're mostly liberal Democrats? That's just stupid and lazy.
Norah McDonnell perpetuates the "Karl Rove is a political genius" meme so intractably popular in Washington DC circles:
I think everybody knows where Karl Rove comes from. And I think the genius of Karl Rove, whether you agree or disagree with him, even the things he’s done inside the Bush administration, is that he is a brilliant political tactician. There’s nobody since I covered the White House who knows the numbers, who knows demographics of congressional districts, who knows the delegate counts better. I mean, really, other than like Chuck Todd, who does the numbers like that, Karl Rove knows this stuff, lives it, breathes it, digs it, and so that’s why he’s a good source in that regard. But there’s no doubt…I mean, he wants the Republican…and he wants McCain to win, even though he tried to destroy McCain in 2000.
Norah, no one knows better than Karl? Can you say 2006 elections? I predicted the outcome more accurately than Rove did. Where's my pundit spot where I can attack the Republicans under the guise of my "political expertise"? And I'm not guilty of orchestrating dirty elections, ramping up a propaganda tsunami to force the country into an illegal war or treasonously outing a CIA covert officer. I think a moral compass would be a refreshing change in the punditry, don't you?
