More Rove

Lawrence O'Donnell thinks Rove is a cancer on the Presidency. He also thinks saying that the White House dodged a bullet is the stupidest thing ever said, or something along those lines. I hope more than anything that he is right.

O'Donnell:
The White House dodged a bullet’ is the single stupidest bit of nonstop echo punditry we’ve heard this weekend. Karl Rove not getting indicted presents the White House with a worse problem than an indictment would have. The problem being—Rove is going to go to work Monday morning at the White House with TV cameras following his every move and with 47% of the public believing he did something wrong, according to today’s Washington Post poll.
...
The pundit world, having spent years in awe of Karl Rove, will never understand how bad he is at his White House job. His second term agenda destroyed this presidency long before Patrick Fitzgerald’s press conference. Rove sent his president on a political death march on Social Security reform with the most hopeless legislative idea since the Clinton health care bill. That showed Congress how powerless the second-term Bush would be. Without the Social Security collapse—which I predicted on day one of the Social Security crusade—Senate Republicans and the right wing would not have dared defy their president on a Rove-managed Supreme Court nomination. And Rove obviously had no feel for the politics of Katrina which pulled Bush poll numbers to record lows.

As long as Karl Rove stays in the White House doing the terrible job he is doing and bringing the stench of scandal with him every time he walks in the door, the Bush presidency will remain a powerless gang that couldn’t shoot straight. And the ‘dodge the bullet’ chorus will never understand that.

Maybe Rove will be indicted, or help to bring down the poll numbers on the WH because of his scandalous presense and ineffectiveness. But for now, and especially initially after watching Fitzgerald's press conference, it just seems like the White House could have been sunk in one full swoop and it wasn't. I still think that Rove staying in the White House, even doing a "terrible job," is far better for the WH and their pr machine than had he been indicted. From his WH perch, Rove can attempt to control the story. Scalito anyone?

Also, O'Donnell mentions the "awe" of Rove, and although I understand why he thinks Rove is the exact opposite of his reputation for reasons he noted above, I can see why the pundits continue to praise him because his escape from Fitz, temporary as it may be, furthered the Rove myth and only added to that awe.