Joshua Green's Atlantic cover story on "the Rove presidency" came out just before Rove called it quits, but it's probably going to be the ur-text on Rove-in-the-White-House -- a deep, intelligent, well-reported look at how the guy who Republicans and Democrats alike had annointed the greatest political genius of his time managed to screw the pooch so royally. The piece is behind the Atlantic's subscriber wall, but you can still read it -- pages one, two, three, four, five, and six -- thanks to the magic of Google cacheing. [Update: Some of the cached pages are gone, unfortunately.]
One suprise is the parallel between Rove and the Hillary Clinton who botched universal health care in 1993. Both tried to push their own political ambitions through Congress without properly deferring to the congressional leadership, and both thus lost the ability to pass ambitious legislation even when both houses were held by their own party. Something about winning the presidency apparently makes people think they get to call all the shots.
8/16/07
