Media Gushes Over Rove: ‘Superstar,’ ‘Boy Genius,’ ‘The Mastermind Behind Everything’

As soon as Karl Rove’s departure from the White House was announced this morning, there was no shortage of talking heads to appear on TV to lavish praise on him. On Fox News, former White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card called Rove “a superstar,” CBS White House Correspondent Bill Plante described him as “the mastermind behind everything,” and on MSNBC, Chris Matthews declared “generally, where there’s brains, there’s Rove.”

While Rove is undoubtedly a skilled campaign tactician, the hyperbolic image of him as a political genius overlooks his record of bungled political predictions, a series of policy failures and the damage he has wrought on America’s political system.

ThinkProgress has put together a highlights reel of the breathless adoration for Rove. Think Progress

It was Rove doing what he has done, consummately, for his tenure in The White House: controlling the message. AP