Opinion: Next thing, he’ll have his own show

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After a controversial career pulling political strings behind the scenes, Karl Rove increasingly is going public with his thoughts.

The most recent issue of Newsweek carried the first of several columns he’ll be writing on the 2008 campaign. Not suprisingly, it focused on Hillary Clinton; after relating an anecdote concerning the White House office he inherited from the former first lady, Rove characterized her as one who is ‘tough, persistent and forgets nothing.’

Wednesday night, he sat down for the better part of an hour with Charlie Rose on PBS. An especially interesting exchange occurred about 10 minutes into the interview, sparked by Rove mentioning the recent raft of Page One stories in major newspapers on positive developments in Iraq (such as this one and this one).

Rose noted the obvious irony of Rove bolstering his case on progress in Iraq by citing publications that he and other key members of the Bush administration routinely scorned, in the past, as biased and negative in their coverage of the war. Did not Rove’s references to the newer stories speak to the credibility of the previous reporting, Rose asked.

Rove, of course, would have none of it. His take: ‘The reality on the ground in Iraq has been even impossible for serious critics like the New York Times to ignore.’

The full interview can be seen here.

-- Don Frederick