Subverting democracy and continuing the steep decline in the political dialogue which truly began under his tutor Lee Atwater. He and the Bushes deserve to live in the fetid Louisiana Swamps where they can contemplate the state of the country their leadership has brought US.

How to rate Karl Rove? He is masterful in steering political campaigns and mobilizing voters to vote for his candidates. His methods are contentious, but whether you love him or hate him, he is successful, and he deserves at least a grudging respect. For all of that, I would give him a 5'........... However, his involvement in the leak of Valerie Plames identity to the press should give even the most fervent Republicans pause for thought, even based on what we know now. There is great potential to get lost in the legal technicalities of his actions did he have clearance?, did he actually use her name?, or did he just refer to her as Wilsons wife?, etc. Lets just look beyond that. At a minimum, we know that he, the most senior political advisor to the president, gave information to the press allowing them to identify an undercover CIA operative. This is bad, terrible in fact..... But people sometimes do bad things for good reasons. RIA members often discuss cases where they believe that the end justifies the means. Lets now look at that..... What prompted Rove to reveal this information was that Wilson had written an article based on his 2002 investigation of yellowcake uranium procurement by Iraq in Niger, an investigation that was commissioned by the CIA, the results of which squarely contradicted the intelligence cited by Bush on uranium procurement in his January 2003 State of the Union address several months later.......Rove sought to discredit Wilsons report by telling a member of the press that Wilsons trip to Niger had been authorized by his wife, implying that it was some sort of nepotistic kick-back from wife to husband, thus casting a doubt over the entire investigation.... In other words, he wanted to punish and damage the credibility of a man who was speaking out on facts which contradicted a key part of the distorted intelligence that was used to dupe the American people into war in Iraq, intelligence which even the White House later admitted was false.... There is no nobility in this. This is just tawdry and ruthless politics, regardless of whether it is technically legal or not. I await the final outcome of the investigation with great interest, but in my minds eye, I see that slimy frog that we all tried to catch as kids, which unexpectedly slithered out of our grasp when we thought we had caught it, and hopped under cover and into safety..

I found Karl Rove's soundbyte on liberals fascinating. At first glance, it would appear to be the sort of loutish partisanship you would find on ria (see: deplorable americans), or a case of foolish exaggeration like the Durbin quote. But having followed Rove like I have, my sense is that this quote was nothing of the sort. Nothing that comes out of this man's mouth is an accident. He's just too smart, too politically savvy. Rove knew exactly what he was doing when he made the ridiculous statement about liberals. At a time when things are not going well for GWB, this was a Karl Rove shout out to the conservative faithful to circle the wagons. Get the country embroiled in a moronic debate about a controversial comment - my team against yours, and take the focus off the failures in Iraq, the failures with pushing through Social Security reform, and the growing impression that GWB's second term has stalled before it started. Brilliant. Unlike the Durbin case, you'll see no tearful apologies from Rove. This was no accident, and was just Rove being Rove. The question of whether this sort of political leadership from a senior official in our governing administration makes our country a better place is not one that the GWB group cares about, i think.

A genius? Only if you think resorting to the tactics of an eighth grader running for student council is a sign of genius. Karl Rove succeeds because he is unhampered by adult considerations of ethics and consequences. He is a giggling, immature cherub constantly amazed by the fact that most other adults are not willing to sink to do anything to get what they want. If the rest of the political world operated the way he does, Congress would have long ago collapsed into fight-fighting, name-calling, prank phone calls and Kick me! signs on everyone's back.

Creepy advisor that is the Bush Administration counterpart to Grima Wormtongue. Slimy and tricky.

The man is a political genius. Maybe that is why so many Dems hate this guy.

Slimy son of a Nazi.

This man has pulled more dirty tricks than anyone around. He's one of the most dispicable beings in the world.

Rove is a smart one. Besides redistricting, the Republicans were able to hold on to the House and Senate in 2002 because of Rove's recruitment operation. Some of his policy decisions are a bit too shortsighted and political in my opinion though. Rove advised Bush in early 2002 to raise tariffs on steel because it would help him out in states like West Virginia and Pennsylvania, very important states that he needs to win in '04. I've always felt that this was a bad decision that will ultimately not help Bush's re-election out. The tariffs have caused unemployment to go up in manufacturing states like Michigan, Ohio, Illinois and a lot of other states, thus hurting his chances there. Manufacturers rely on cheap steel prices to keep production costs down. When costs are down, they can afford to hire people, thus reducing the unemployment rate. Not to mention that we may have a major trade war brewing with Europe because of this, causing profits to go down for American producers selling products over there. Some of Rove's advice has been based on raw political expediency and targeting specialized interest groups rather than looking at the big picture. Rove's power comes from the fact that he is a political advisor making policy choices for political reasons, not a good way to make decisions that will affect the US for a long time after Bush-Cheney is gone.