Rove's Dilemma

"And that's just not Rove's style. So he's off to Texas, leaving the messes he made for someone else to clean up."

The Toledo Blade: "Universally, the theories of why Mr. Rove is leaving place no stock in his publicly stated reason -- to spend more time with his family."

The Blade considers some more likely alternatives; his departure may have been "a careful tweak to improve the party's image by reducing the heat generated by his presence inside the White House. . . .

"Another theory of why Mr. Rove is leaving now posits a President and a Republican Party in serious trouble with the electorate. The image evoked is that of Count Dracula racing across the icy tundra in his cart with the wolves close behind, perhaps kicking off a victim to distract his pursuers."

The Winston-Salem Journal: "If President Bush is to salvage anything from the rest of his administration, it will require the kind of leadership of which Rove has been incapable since he came onto the national stage."

Norfolk's Virginian-Pilot: "A man who it was once thought would usher the nation into a generation of Republican domination now leaves to spend time with his family, write a book and ponder how to justify all that went wrong."

Opinion Watch

William McKenzie writes in his Dallas Morning News opinion column: "The fact is, if you're running for president, you want a guy like Karl Rove on your staff. The man eats, sleeps and breathes politics . . . but Mr. Bush then erred by bringing his small facts-and-big picture guy into the White House.

"Mr. Rove could have advised and strategized from the outside, the role James Carville played for Mr. Clinton."

One problem, McKenzie writes, was Rove's personality: "You've probably met someone like this -- funny and entertaining but who must prevail. Call that person a likable bully.

"When Mr. Rove joined the White House staff to stay close to the president and show off his intellectual wonkishness, his domineering style came with him. People like that suck the air out of the room, particularly when they've masterminded two winning presidential campaigns.

"They also have a tendency to make sure few others get close to the big guy, in this case the one who sits in the Oval Office. That last part can be deadly because it isolates a president, as several Bush officials and supporters say he has done."

Carl P. Leubsdorf writes in the Dallas Morning News that "the closeness of Mr. Bush and Mr. Rove has created some doubts where the strategist's influence ended.

"That is especially true in view of the fact that Mr. Rove's D.C. tactics resemble those he employed in Texas, while Mr. Bush's presidency has often seemed so different from the 'compassionate conservative' image his governorship fostered."

Ronald Brownstein writes in his Los Angeles Times opinion column that "with Rove's leadership, the White House undertook a very specific kind of political outreach. Rather than seeking to realign the overall electorate with a message and agenda that appealed broadly across party lines, Rove targeted appeals at niche groups, such as the religiously devout African Americans who were courted with grants from the White House initiative to fund faith-based social services. Rove took it as a given that Bush could never convert the broad mass of voters skeptical of him, and he increasingly portrayed the intense opposition the president provoked as a badge of honor -- proof that Bush was making tough decisions. . . .

"After Bush's disastrous second term, it's difficult to imagine that another president will try to govern with so much resistance to compromise and so little concern for opinions outside his coalition. Rove often maneuvered with great skill (and better humor than he's credited with), but he leaves Washington as a brilliant tactician in the service of a fundamentally flawed strategy."

Harold Meyerson writes in his Washington Post opinion column: "Decades from now, historians will have trouble fathoming why Karl Rove's contemporaries hailed him as a genius. An expert practitioner of wedge politics, in the tradition of Lee Atwater? Sure. But architect of an enduring Republican majority? The great realigner? What were the pundits of 2002 and 2004 smoking?"

Garrison Keillor writes for Salon that "what I find eerie about the man is his inexhaustible self-confidence and optimism. . . . According to some accounts, his positive outlook was responsible for the Current Occupant's sunny disposition in the face of bad news. No wonder Mr. Rove's nickname was Turd Blossom. He could put fecal matter on his lapel and call it a boutonniere. . . .

"Mr. Rove spoke with great confidence about beans and tomatoes and showed slides and got standing ovations in many places, but he didn't get the crops in. Goodbye and good riddance."

Clinton strategist James Carville writes in the Financial Times: "The evidence is now pretty conclusive that Mr Rove may have lost more than just an election in 2006. He has lost an entire generation for the Republican party. . . .

"If the trends hold, the one thing that we can be sure of is that Mr Rove's political grave will receive no lack of irrigation from future Republicans."

Rove's Book

Kenneth R. Bazinet writes in the New York Daily News: "Karl Rove could score millions for a book on his Bush White House years - but only if he'll dish dirt that might rattle the cages of longtime colleagues, publishing experts said yesterday. . . .

"'The advance could be high-six or even seven figures if Rove is willing to talk. If he's not willing to say much that we don't already know, I'd put the advance worth $75,000 or so,' said Washington book agent Diane Nine. 'As one publisher pointed out, he has Bush's 'blessing' for the book, which leads some to believe he won't spill much.'"

Sridhar Pappu writes in The Washington Post that writing a tell-all "would seem contrary to the mythological Rove we've come not to know." And then there's this other problem: "You couldn't blame anyone for questioning the veracity of Rove's accounts."

Rove's Regret

In his Wall Street Journal interview on Saturday, Rove was asked what his own White House mistakes have been. His response: "I'll put my feet up in September and think about that."

Al Kamen writes in today's Washington Post: "Asked by our colleague, Peter Baker, if there is one, just one, thing he really, really regrets, Rove said: 'I regret accepting that invitation from CNN and going to that stupid dinner and getting turned into MC Rove.'"

Rove's Plans

R.G. Ratcliffe and Clay Robison write in the Houston Chronicle that yes, indeed, Rove is planning on making Texas his home again -- but not right away.

"'I don't know what I'll do next, except that we want to spend more time in Texas and make our way back there within a few years. I expect to write a book, make a few speeches and take some time to figure out what the future will hold,' Rove said in an e-mail sent to Texas friends."

Iraq Watch

Near the end of their Los Angeles Times story about what Gen. David H. Petraeus is expected to propose in a September status report, Julian E. Barnes and Peter Spiegel have this astonishing revalation: "Despite Bush's repeated statements that the report will reflect evaluations by Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, administration officials said it would actually be written by the White House, with inputs from officials throughout the government."

No wonder Bush is cutting short his September trip to Asia.

"How to deal in the report with the lack of national reconciliation between Iraq's warring sects has created some tension within the White House," Barnes and Spiegel write.

"During internal White House discussion of a July interim report, some officials urged the administration to claim progress in policy areas such as legislation to divvy up Iraq's oil revenue, even though no final agreement had been reached. Others argued that such assertions would be disingenuous.

"'There were some in the drafting of the report that said, 'Well, we can claim progress,' ' the administration official said. 'There were others who said: "Wait a second. Sure we can claim progress, but it's not credible to . . . just neglect the fact that it's had no effect on the ground." '"

Meanwhile, Leila Fadel writes for McClatchy Newspapers: "Despite U.S. claims that violence is down in the Iraqi capital, U.S. military officers are offering a bleak picture of Iraq's future, saying they've yet to see any signs of reconciliation between Sunni and Shiite Muslims despite the drop in violence.

"Without reconciliation, the military officers say, any decline in violence will be temporary and bloodshed could return to previous levels as soon as the U.S. military cuts back its campaign against insurgent attacks. . . .

"And while top U.S. officials insist that 50 percent of the capital is now under effective U.S. or government control, compared with 8 percent in February, statistics indicate that the improvement in violence is at best mixed."

David S. Cloud wrote in yesterday's New York Times that Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates "is shaping up to be a pivotal figure in the debate. As an outsider who took over at the Pentagon only last December, and who has admirers in both parties, he may be the one person with the clout to persuade either President Bush or the Democratic-led Congress to compromise.

"He is also the administration official whose views are the least understood."

Also in yesterday's Times, John F. Burns wrote: "Mr. Bush has often sounded as though his Iraq commander offers a fount of credibility on the war that can compensate for the president's poor poll ratings. In war speeches, he cites General Petraeus like a talisman. . . .

"But for General Petraeus, being cast as the president's white knight has been a mixed blessing. While he talks with Mr. Bush once or twice a week, in interviews he depicts himself as owing loyalty as much to Congress as the White House and stresses the downside, as well as the upside, of the military effort here.

"His view, he says, is that he is 'on a very important mission that derives from a policy made by folks at one end of Pennsylvania Avenue, with the advice and consent and resources provided by folks at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. And in September, that's how I'm going to approach it.' Whether to fight on here, he says, is a 'big, big decision, a national decision,' one that belongs to elected officials, not a field general."

Death Penalty Watch

Richard B. Schmitt wrote in yesterday's Los Angeles Times: "The Justice Department is putting the final touches on regulations that could give Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales important new sway over death penalty cases in California and other states, including the power to shorten the time that death row inmates have to appeal convictions to federal courts.

"The rules implement a little-noticed provision in last year's reauthorization of the Patriot Act that gives the attorney general the power to decide whether individual states are providing adequate counsel for defendants in death penalty cases. The authority has been held by federal judges."

Andrew Gumbel explains in the Independent: "With less than 18 months to go to secure a presidential legacy, President Bush has turned to an issue he has specialised in since approving a record number of executions while Governor of Texas. . . .

"On the question of whether defendants received adequate representation at trial - a key issue in many cases, especially in southern states with no formal public defender system -- the Attorney General would be the sole decision-maker.

"Since Mr Gonzales is a prosecutor, not a judge, and since he has a track record of favouring death in almost every capital case brought before him, the regulations would, in effect, remove a crucial safety net for prisoners who feel they have been wrongly convicted."

In a 2003 article in the Atlantic, Alan Berlow documented the Bush-Gonzales record on executions.

More Cheney!

Cheney biographer Stephen F. Hayes writes in a Wall Street Journal op-ed: "With intelligence officials in Washington increasingly alarmed about the prospect of another major attack on the U.S. homeland, and public support for the Bush administration's anti-terror efforts reclaiming lost ground, we need more Dick Cheney."

Cheney and the Quagmire

Editor and Publisher reports on the "posting of a now wildly popular video on YouTube that shows Dick Cheney explaining in 1994 that trying to take over Iraq would be a bad idea and lead to a 'quagmire.'"

Cheney's comments were previously reported in September 2004 in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, but there's something mesmerizing about seeing Cheney on video explaining such a sophisticated and prescient view of the downsides of invading Iraq.

Says Cheney: "Once you got to Iraq and took it over, took down Saddam Hussein's government, then what are you going to put in its place? That's a very volatile part of the world, and if you take down the central government of Iraq, you could very easily end up seeing pieces of Iraq fly off. . . .

"It's a quagmire if you go that far and try to take over Iraq.

"The other thing was casualties. Everyone was impressed with the fact we were able to do our job with as few casualties as we had. But for the 146 Americans killed in action, and for their families -- it wasn't a cheap war. And the question for the president, in terms of whether or not we went on to Baghdad, took additional casualties in an effort to get Saddam Hussein, was how many additional dead Americans is Saddam worth?

"Our judgment was, not very many, and I think we got it right."

Plante's Question

Patrick Gavin blogs for FishbowlDC: "As Karl Rove embraced President Bush [Tuesday] following an emotional farewell announcement on the South Lawn, the solemnity of the moment was shattered by Bill Plante of CBS, who bellowed to Bush: 'If he's so smart, how come you lost Congress?'"

Plante himself responds to the uproar on the CBS News Web site: "[J]udging by some of the reaction, you'd think I had been shouting obscenities in church! . . .

"People who sympathize with the President -- no matter who the President happens to be -- always seem to think it's impolite to yell questions. Or they argue that the question is inappropriate at the moment. That may sometimes be true, but not [this time].

"Rove has been a controversial figure in this administration, the man most often credited or blamed with framing support for the war by politicizing terrorism.

"There was no time to frame that question because the event this morning was a statement, not a news conference. So I asked a more direct one. I thought it unlikely that they would answer, but it's always worth a try."

Cartoon Watch

Pat Oliphant on Rove.