Is Karl Rove's media career kaput?
Don't count Karl Rove out, despite reports that the GOP strategist will get less face time on Fox News for the foreseeable future. He still has some platforms, and he knows how to use them.
Former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove is seen at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida in Aug.
Eric Thayer/Reuters
Is Karl Rove’s media career kaput?
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Washington Editor
Peter Grier is The Christian Science Monitor's Washington editor. In this capacity, he helps direct coverage for the paper on most news events in the nation's capital.
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This question arises as a result of reports that Mr. Rove has been benched by his main television outlet, Fox News. According to New York Magazine, top Fox officials have ordered that producers must get permission before putting Rove or fellow GOP pundit Dick Morris on air. It’s all part of an effort by head honcho Roger Ailes to freshen story lines and change the network’s cast of characters, writes New York’s Gabriel Sherman.
It didn’t help that Rove and Mr. Morris both predicted a big election victory for Mitt Romney. Both were way off compared with the new gold standard of punditry, New York Times polling guru Nate Silver. Also, there was that awkward on-air moment when Rove insisted that Fox was wrong to call Ohio for President Obama. He insisted it was way too early to make the call. The president ended up winning the Buckeye State by three percentage points.
“Multiple sources say that Ailes was angry at Rove’s election-night tantrum when he disputed the network’s call for Obama,” writes Mr. Sherman.
What’s going on here? Is former Fox fave Rove to be replaced by David Petraeus, the disgraced former CIA chief and military general whom Mr. Ailes urged to run for president? Mr. Petraeus needs a job, after all, and a stint as a network talking head would be lucrative and easy. Ex-New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer resurfaced as a pundit after his own peccadilloes drove him from office. Petraeus could do the same thing.
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