McClellan and Rove

I haven't commented much on Scott McClellan's book. But it is not necessary to bemoan his possible financial incentives to dump on Bush to see the core truth that Peggy Noonan grasps:

His primary target is Karl Rove, whose role he says was "political manipulation, plain and simple." He criticizes as destructive the 50-plus-1 strategy that focused on retaining power through appeals to the base at the expense of a larger approach to the nation. He blames Mr. Rove for sundering the brief post-9/11 bipartisan entente when he went before an open Republican National Committee meeting in Austin, four months after 9/11, and said the GOP would make the war on terror the top issue to win the Senate and keep the House in the 2002 campaign. By the spring the Democratic Party and the media were slamming back with charges the administration had been warned before 9/11 of terrorist plans and done nothing. That war has continued ever since.

Rove has been one of the most lethal poisons ever injected into the political bloodstream.