More About Rove; Gone but not Gone

As I hypothesized in my recent farewell-to-Rove post, really, just how gone is he going to be? And being a beloved Republican, if he works on an informal, reduced level, the GOPers do take care of their own.

Anyway, one pro opines, seconding this amateur:

Karl Rove told reporters Monday that he doesn't anticipate taking a "formal role" in the campaign of any Republican contender in 2008. His reason: He said his wife might kill him if he did.

But there's another reason, and it should be obvious to anyone familiar with the way Americans -- even Republicans -- have come to view the Bush administration. As Adam Nagourney writes in today's New York Times, campaign aides for the 2008 Republican contenders responded with "silence" Monday when asked if Rove would be welcome to join their teams.

Of course, Rove doesn't have to take a "formal" role in any Republican campaign to make his mark on it. As Nagourney notes, "A look at the roster of every Republican presidential candidate finds people who have worked with [Rove], and they have brought some of his methods to this race." Rove's protégés and the men for whom they work would surely be happy to have the help of the man who put George W. Bush in the White House twice, just as long as no one sees them getting it.

Rove said Monday that he'll never be more than a phone call away. He said he'd be "happy" to offer his opinion to his "friends" in the 2008 campaign because he's an "opinionated person" and would like to see a Republican win.

Link.

This is, after all, the way the world works, just that simple.

On the other hand, one wonders: Is he a rat deserting a sinking ship, as it were?

If Karl Rove was responsible for the remarkable ascent of the Republican Party since 2000, he is equally responsible for what is beginning to look like its vertical collapse. With the Christian right deeply disappointed at Bush and in search of a candidate for the 2008 election, economic conservatives alienated by the White House's failure to impose fiscal discipline on the Congress when the Republicans were in charge of both houses, and congressional Republicans caught in the undertow of a failing president's failed war, the party Rove predicted would become a permanent majority is no more. Rove could put the party together, but in the end he proved incapable of holding it together.

Then, getting back to my original point, if Rove is to be any sort of player in the 08 cycle, he can't really do it out of the White House, particularly at this time....

And of course there's way more:

Jay Rosen on how the Washington press corps (or corpse as we like to reference them since their journalistic sensibilities are dead) got played by Maestro Rove.

Test your knowledge of Rove trivia.

Really, Rove some sort of failure? (I think not but let me get back to you on that sometime after the next election....)

What does John Edwards have to say about this? (Not a lot, just concise.)

And not that there's anything funnt bout the harm Rove did to this country, but let's end this post with a laff via Top5.