Washington Post does a feature on the emerging very public role of Karl Rove. He's coming out of the shadows. Couple key interesting points:
Rove speaks on behalf of the president not just on the politics of the moment but also on the administration's policy agenda.Yeah, he speaks for Bush. Everything that comes out of his mouth are basically the words of the President. So Bush thinks Democrats and Liberals want to kill the troops too. (While they won't give the troops the right equipment insuring their deaths. Read this NY Times article.)
The article also shows how in synch the GOP media machine is:
The White House reaction to the uproar also bore the indelible stamp of Rove: no apologies and no retractions, and all engines in the GOP spin machine churning in concert. White House press secretary Scott McClellan and Bartlett defended Rove from the briefing room and on several morning television programs, and Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman jumped in with customary aggressiveness. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), in a bit of a role reversal, came to the defense of Rove by repeating some of the most provocative lines to College Republicans and saying, "That's not slander. That's the truth." The National Republican Senatorial Committee sent out an e-mail fundraising appeal proclaiming "Karl Rove Is Right."Wonder what it is like to have an echo chamber. These guys stick together no matter what.
The scary thing is that Kerry's 2004 campaign consultants are "analyzing" Kerry's remarks:
While many Democrats reacted with rage when they first heard about Rove's remarks, they were more mixed in their view of whether he had made the mistake of going too far or had cleverly baited a trap for them by opening up an argument on political turf that long has favored the Republicans. "I don't think anybody knows yet [whether] what he said the other night is a mistake," said Tad Devine, who was a top strategist in Kerry's campaign. "I will say it is calculated and deliberate. Karl for a long time has tried to position the Democrats as liberals, and liberals as weak, who don't want to defend America."Well, I feel a lot better knowing Tad Devine has weighed in. Devine was ubiquitous last fall, spinning for Kerry as one of the top strategists. If he and the other Kerry consultants are trying to figure out a response to Rove, we're sunk. He's probably still sitting around with Shrum still trying to figure out whether they should have fought back against the Swift Boat attacks.
