3 Essential Rs: Riting, Rithmetic, Rove

May 15, 2008 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Election 2008 

I assume that many if not all TNN readers have already checked out The Wall Street Journal most mornings before they give us the double click that we wait for to brighten our day. So it is probably redundant to direct you to Karl Rove’s column in the Journal (especially today when my colleague Jonathan Movroydis has already included it in today’s “Featured Articles”) — or his pieces in The New York Times or even those in Newsweek. Those venues, along with his gig as a Fox News Contributor, have made Mr. Rove a provider of content whose ubiquity may only be exceeded by Mark Steyn.

Mr. Rove’s humanity has, apparently, turned out as something of a surprise to his new liberal stablemates. His political acumen was unquestioned, so the fact that his columns and commentary are insightful and informed came as no surprise. But they also expected him to arrive trailing a cloud of sulphur, ready to displace Bob Novak as the dauphin of darkness. Indeed, fact that Karl Rove is not only human but a nice guy to boot has been deemed sufficiently newsworthy to elicit a Washington Post column from Howard Kurtz (“Rove’s Second Act”). Mr Kurtz admitted, if somewhat begrudgingly, that “No one would accuse the newly minted pundit of being balanced, but to the surprise of some critics, he has been generally fair-minded in his commentary. The man long derided by the left as ‘Bush’s brain’ is trying to move beyond his attack-dog reputation.”

And just the other day, among Brit Hume’s pickings from the Political Grapevine, was a choice quote from some Mr. Rove’s newly minted good bud Newsweek Editor Jon Meachum. Mr. Hume quoted The New York Times quoting Mr. Meachum:

Mr. Meacham said Mr. Rove had been received surprisingly well in the magazine’s newsroom, where he has been a reliable colleague who files his articles on time and works diligently with fact checkers.

“After one editor dealt with him,” Mr. Meacham said, “the editor called me and said, ‘This just complicated my world view. I may like Karl Rove.’ ”

Some commentators have conveyed similar surprise.

ROVE HUMAN has not yet achieved above the fold status, but that may only be a matter of time. All of this is by way of pointing out that the human and likable Mr. Rove’s columns are worth reading, and none more so than the one in today’s Journal. This is an objective and generally positive and exhortatory electoral analysis of the point raised more negatively in an earlier blog (“Why We Don’t Deserve to Win”) based on a column by……Bob Novak.

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