On Rove

A reader writes:

I agree with you completely on Karl Rove – I’ve never regarded him as an evil genius. Evil, yes. Genius, no. But the evidence of his strategic mediocrity actually goes back longer than you say. The only races he ever won were before 2000 were in places like Texas and Alabama, where it would have been extremely difficult for a right-wing Republican to LOSE (and even there he picked his races).

And his main accomplishment as a strategist in 2000 was to come within a hair of unnecessarily losing the race for Bush by deciding that his election was a lead-pipe cinch and encouraging Bush to "build up more of a mandate" by spending his last few days trying to add California and New Jersey to his list of states — both of which he lost by a landslide. Had it not been for the evil stellar conjunction of the Electoral College, Ralph Nader, the ballot designers of Palm Beach, a highly doubtful Supreme Court decision, and Gore’s own decision to blow his own foot off by trying to cherry-pick his way to victory instad of immediately demanding an honest statewide recount, Karl Rove would be a political laughingstock today.

Hard to disagree.