I kind of like Bilbo Baggins, don't you? He's one of the heroes of J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings series, and generally injects a bit of common sense into the discussion, even timidly at times.

I like Bernie Sanders, too, so I'm not really sure if Karl Rove was praising or criticizing him with this:

Well look, first of all, the debate reminded us of two things. One is [Hillary Clinton] is a pretty good debater. Remember in 2012 she took Barack Obama to school most of the time in the debates and still lost the nomination. The other thing that it reminded us is the rest of the field are really weak. Really really weak. I mean, I called Bernie Sanders an elderly dyspeptic Bilbo Baggins appearing like he was at the British Labour Party meeting. So, I mean, this is just ridiculous.

I disagree with his claim that Bernie Sanders was weak in the debate. I remain of the opinion that there were two "winners" -- Hillary and Bernie -- for different reasons and with different audiences. But "weak" is not a term I would apply to Sanders. He held his own against Hillary Clinton, who is indeed a formidable debater.