Bruce Bartlett is reading and re-reading Matt Latimer's new book on Bush. He's struck by the accurate and devastating account of the dumbness of Karl Rove contained therein:
Latimer is surprisingly critical of Karl Rove, given that he remains a darling of conservatives. Latimer correctly notes that Bush should have won the 2000 election easily and that it was close only because Rove stupidly wasted millions of campaign dollars in a futile effort to win California in the last days of the campaign instead of shoring up Florida. Latimer also notes that Bush's re-election should have been a slam-dunk but ended up being close. Thus Latimer thinks that Rove's reputation as a political genius is totally undeserved. I agree. Here Latimer summarizes his assessment of Rove:
"Karl was not the hero of the Bush White House, the brilliant behind-the scenes strategist. He was what all the liberals said he was: the villain. And to make matters worse, a clumsy one at that. He employed ham-handed tactics, put forward obviously unqualified subordinates, and stubbornly defended them. He'd turned out to be less a Voldemort than a Boris Badenov chasing Rocky and Bullwinkle."
In the second link above Bartlett also has some worthwhile throughts on the communication strategies of Bush II, Reagan, and Obama.
This article available online at:
http://www.theatlantic.com/daily-dish/archive/2009/09/karl-rove-as-boris-badenov/196209/
