Karl/Jr.

Link courtesy of TalkLeft

The Guardian goes hunting for weasels today with a profile of Karl Rove, the "brain" behind the blank look that is characteristic of Dubya:

In the autumn election season of 1970, a cherubic, bespectacled teenager turned up at the Chicago campaign headquarters of Alan Dixon, a Democrat running for state treasurer in Illinois. No one paid the newcomer much attention when he arrived, or when he left soon afterwards. Nor did anyone in the office make the connection between the mystery volunteer and 1,000 invitations on campaign stationery that began circulating in Chicago's red-light district and soup kitchens, promising "free beer, free food, girls and a good time for nothing" for all-comers at Dixon's headquarters.
As political dirty tricks go, it was minor league. Hundreds of the city's heavy drinkers and homeless turned up at a smart Dixon reception looking for free booze. Dixon was embarrassed but the plot failed to stop his momentum: he was elected state treasurer and went on to become a senator. But the teenager who stole his letterheads, Karl Rove, has gone even further.

Rove might not take too kindly to the profile; however, he might have more pressing things to worry about. TalkingPointsMemo links to an article in The American Prospect (also referred to in TalkLeft) that paints Rove as what I would call an accessory after the fact in the Valerie Plame matter--at best. While not implicating Rove as the source of the Novak article, the piece makes it clear that Rove thought it jolly well good to pile on at a time when perhaps he didn't realize the consequences of outing a CIA agent:

President Bush's chief political adviser, Karl Rove, told the FBI in an interview last October that he circulated and discussed damaging information regarding CIA operative Valerie Plame with others in the White House, outside political consultants, and journalists, according to a government official and an attorney familiar with the ongoing special counsel's investigation of the matter.

And this is the Administration that supposedly can be trusted in matters of national security?