Barnes Swallow

Fred Barnes has always been a suck-up to the Bush administration, but his farewell to Karl Rove in The Weekly Standard is over the top:

Rove is the greatest political mind of his generation and probably of any generation. He not only is a breathtakingly smart strategist but also a clever tactician. He knows history, understands the moods of the public, and is a visionary on matters of public policy. But he is not a magician.

In other words, it's not the fault of the greatest political mind since Creation that the president he works for hasn't accomplished anything in his second term except to get 70% of the American electorate to disapprove of his performance in office. No, that's someone else's fault.

Rove has been faulted for the failure of Bush's two major domestic initiatives of his second term, Social Security reform and immigration reform. For sure, Rove strongly favored both policies and expected them to fare better than they did. But is he to blame for near-unanimous Democratic opposition to overhauling Social Security? Of course not.

Seeing as how Social Security reform couldn't get started when the Republicans had the majority in the House and Senate and Mr. Bush's immigration reform started a revolt in his own party, it doesn't speak too well to the abilities of the greatest political mind of this or any generation.

But Karl did sign Fred's yearbook, so it's all good.

Cross-posted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.