Clipping Rove's Wings or Setting Rove Free?

Newsweek's Howard Fineman has an interesting article titled Clipping Rove's Wings. I don't agree that that title is accurate but it's Fineman's right to call it that.
In the snakepit of the White House, any White House, power is a zero sum game. Bolten has demonstrated his clout by taking some away from the Empire of Rove. Forget trying to play policy expert, Bolten told Rove. Go back to focusing on what you do best: building and running a Republican election machine.
Fineman's characterization seems a bit melodramatic to me. Yes, Rove is giving up his policymaking powers. That's something I expected once election season rolled around. It's only logical that he'd use Rove as a policy adviser after re-inauguration, then return him to his role as "The Architect" when the elections neared.

I don't think that Fineman is surprised by this move because he's too smart for that. I suspect that Mr. Fineman's playing it this way to dramaticize the shift.
Finally, Iran: a nightmare waiting to happen. I'm not a global intel guy, but the people I know and trust tell me that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the real deal, that is, a real menace, and not just to Israel, but to our other major client/partners/sort-of friends in the region, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Lebanon. But the president is hemmed in; his erstwhile British buddy, Prime Minister Tony Blair, preventively has said “count me out' of any military action. So it looks like Iran, too, will wind up being a matter for another day, and for someone else's, very cluttered, desk.
This is hilarious. Early in his presidency, the Washington Bash Bush media whined about how willing Bush was to go it alone. Now Fineman's saying that Bush won't go it alone. Either Bush is psycho-phrenic or the press speaks with a forked tongue. I know which is more likely and it isn't that the President is seeing a psychiatrist.


Posted Wednesday, April 19, 2006 7:34 PM

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