British perspective on Karl

I just read the Karl Rove profile in the Guardian:

In case you don't have time to read the entire profile, or don't want to register for the Guardian, here's the ending:

Alongside his ambition and fixation on politics he appears to have believed that the end always justified the means. At school debates he had a mountain of reference cards. Every debater on the team brought a shoebox of cards, but he would bring up to 10 boxes and dump them down, intimidatingly. A team-mate said "there wasn't a thing on 99% of them". He seems to have been a natural at what he called "pranks". Working on one of his first proper campaigns, aged 19 [in 1970], in Illinois, he infiltrated the Democratic campaign and stole its headed notepaper, which he used on the streets to distribute invitations to their HQ promising "free beer, free food, girls and a good time for nothing".

Three years later, he was caught on tape boasting about such exploits to student Republicans; the party chairman at the time, Bush's father (George HW Bush) was so impressed he hired him as an assistant.

One of his menial jobs was to hand over the Bush car keys whenever George junior went to Washington. Rove's description sounds like the start of a love affair. "I can literally remember what he was wearing" he said of an occasion in 1973, "an Air National Guard flight jacket, cowboy boots, blue jeans. He was exuding more charisma than any one individual should be allowed to have."

Since that day, nothing has stood in the way of their political marriage: Bush's opponents have been smeared as lesbians (Ann Richards, the ousted Texas governor), crazed veterans with illegitimate Asian children (Senator John McCain) and cowards falsifying their war records (Senator John Kerry).

The dirty tricks out of the bag, Rove has been close at hand but leaving no discernible fingerprints. Until this week. For the first time in 32 years, he has been caught, and his survival now depends on the gratitude of his partner and protege in the White House.

As Robbie Burns put it,
"O wad some Power the giftie gie us

To see oursels as ithers see us!
This is how the British see us--and it's good to get some perspective.