Get this: Karl Rove was scared

The Television Critics Assn. Press Tour, the semiannual gathering of television journalists from around the country that began July 8, continues at the Beverly Hilton. We offer these dispatches.

Wait, did Karl Rove just admit that he was scared?

“I was never nervous going on television before,” the longtime Bush advisor told television critics Monday. But when he started contributing to Fox News this year, he said, he experienced an unfamiliar feeling.

“I gotta tell you, the first night I sat there with Chris [Wallace] and Brit [Hume], I was really nervous,” Rove said. “It was sort of like flying without any instructions.”

Both Rove and Howard Wolfson, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s former strategist and Fox News’ latest hire, said they see their role on the cable news network as analysts, not as partisan operators.

“I want Barack Obama to be our next president,” Wolfson said. “Having said that, if I’m just offering the talking points of the day, that’s just boring television.”

Rove said that he’s not working with Sen. John McCain’s campaign in any formal capacity but admitted that he has regular contact with people involved in the effort.

“I’ve donated to McCain. I have very good friends on the campaign,” said the veteran Bush strategist. “I do talk to people in politics all across the country, some of whom are very active in the campaign. I play no official role, no ongoing role, but yeah, I do get phone calls.”

John Moody, executive vice president of news editorial, dismissed questions about whether Rove’s political connections create a conflict with his role on Fox News.

“I don’t think Karl would cross an ethical line like that,” said Moody.

Fox News still holds the crown as the top-rated cable news network but has experienced more of a ratings challenge than usual this year from rivals CNN and MSNBC, whose audiences ballooned during the presidential primary race.

“Well, there’s been tightening, obviously,” Moody said in a rare admission. “We’ve certainly been tested in the last year. And I think we’ve emerged from it. I think we’ve gotten past the worst of the test.”

The Fox News team was pressed about recent on-air controversies, such as an anchor’s recent description of a “terrorist fist jab” between Obama and his wife; Moody called it “regrettable.”

“I wish it hadn’t happened,” he said. “There’s a certain amount of freedom, and sometimes freedom includes the freedom to make a mistake.”

Wallace took umbrage at the amount of criticism that Fox News fields.

“I think sometimes there’s a double standard here,” he said. “I think that MSNBC in its coverage of this campaign went so far over the line in terms of being in the tank for Barack Obama that it lost a lot of credibility. And for all the criticism that we sometimes get for allowing our politics to infuse our journalism, the fact is, there’s something of a firewall on Fox.”

-- Matea Gold