It sure seems like Karl Rove’s career as an employee of the White House is on the ropes now that it turns out that Joseph Wilson’s September 2003 accusation that Rove had disclosed his wife’s identity as a CIA agent by leaking to the media is true. Given that we may not have Karl to kick around any more, it’s important to me to remember and take note of his role in the Bush administration as the symbol that perhaps best illustrates the hypocrisy of the George W Bush persona that has been manufactured. Since Bush first ran for president, his claims of being an outside the beltway figure who avoids being mired in petty partisanship have been a constant fixture. But Karl Rove ha always been the man who gives lie to those claims. Nobody has ever explained to me how Karl Rove differs from Dick Morris, whose presence in the Clinton administration was emblematic of its largest failings (and rightfully so). And yet after the 2004 election, when President Bush had won the last election he would ever enter, Karl Rove was granted a promotion. If you are above playing politics, then why do you need to retain the acknowledged master of political gamesmanship? So if Karl Rove does exit soon, let’s try to remember why he was there in the first place.