Karl Rove, Insider With an Outsize Reputation

KARL ROVE, INSIDER WITH OUTSIZE REPUTATION
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Howard Kurtz]
[Commentary] What if journalists are part of an unspoken conspiracy to inflate departed White House aide Karl Rove's importance -- not for ideological reasons but because it makes for a better narrative? What if they are the architects, using well-placed aides to build a stage for inside-dope stories involving Rove and his colleagues? Or perhaps there's a cruder explanation: that some journalists believe Bush lacks the intellectual heft to achieve big things on his own, so they attribute his most consequential decisions to a powerful Svengali at his side. Journalists, having little access to presidents, must piece together the story behind the story by relying on the White House inner circle. That makes political advisers valuable in two respects -- as sources and as subjects. He was depicted instead as the man behind the curtain -- the Bush consigliere responsible for the man's greatest triumphs and deepest failures, depending on who was doing the writing. Jay Rosen, a New York University journalism professor and blogger, writes that reporters hailed Rove for his shrewdness: "In politics, they believe, it's better to be savvy than it is to be honest or correct on the facts. It's better to be savvy than it is to be just, good, fair, decent, strictly lawful, civilized, sincere or humane. . . . And it was this cult that Karl Rove understood and exploited for political gain."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/19/AR2007081901418.html
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