Depending on your point of view, Karl Rove is either a sinister kingmaker-puppeteer behind every policy move President Bush makes, or he is simply a brilliant consultant, one of many in George W. Bush's coterie of advisors. Both views concede that this man is a power in the White House.

Either way, I think you would be hard-pressed to find another modern "consultant" to a President with the quite the amount of press coverage Rove has garnered. Who filled Rove's position in the Clinton White House? Who was LBJ's advisor? Nixon's? Kennedy's? Even in the administration of George W. Bush's father, there is no figure with a comparable prominence in the public eye.

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain....
Avowed Republicans are not immune to accusations of being swayed by the ophidian eye of Rove. RadioBlogger captured this Beltway Boys discussion of Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers, in which Hugh Hewitt announced:

Yesterday, Karl Rove made the argument to me that she has sat for three years in the judicial selection committee, vetting judges with [President Bush], with the vice president, with the then-White House Counsel, Alberto Gonzales, with John Ashcroft, making comments, making arguments, helping select, or you know, thumbs-up or thumbs-down. And it is impossible not to know someone's judicial philosophy after three years of such a process. I find that very persuasive.

(Following this, on his own blog Hugh Hewitt noted that "an anonymous tipster to Ed Whelan asserts that I have been misled by Karl Rove" on the issue of Harriet Miers.)

And The Rude Pundit, "proudly lowering the level of political discourse," states that Rove's persuasive powers were also enlisted to quiet James Dobson's opposition to Miers.

...it's quite something else to assure people that a nominee's Jesus-lovin' will absolutely have an impact on his or her decision-making. But that's exactly what Karl Rove did for James "Behold My Stereotypically Creepily Effeminate Voice" Dobson, head of Focus on the Family and, apparently, someone who has so much access to the White House that he must be hand-jobbed into complacency by a much-distracted Rove.

Karl Rove, high-profile consultant. [Wikipedia]
At fishbowlDC, meanwhile, they're keeping a light shining on the supposed involvement of Rove in the Plame outing. Floating in the bowl is this reference to Karl Rove Neocondoms: "If you passed by DC Superior Court yesterday and thought you saw three seven-foot-tall condoms, you didn't imagine it." The costumed condoms were there to confront Karl Rove, returning to testify before Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's Grand Jury inquiry into the Plame affair. Unfortunately, the blogger notes, "Rove entered the courthouse through a side entrance" and never saw the demonstrators.