By Dan Froomkin
from The Washington Post

I’m used to my readers ascribing all sorts of convoluted motivations to White House political mastermind Karl Rove. But now several upstanding mainstream media outlets are raising the possibility that Rove’s attacks on Hillary Clinton are a colossal head fake.

Ever since he announced his resignation in the Wall Street Journal last week, President Bush’s close adviser has been attacking Clinton, the leading Democratic presidential candidate, right and left. She’s a “fatally flawed candidate,” Rove told Journal editorial-page editor Paul A. Gigot. She’s weak on national security, he told Rush Limbaugh. She carries too much baggage from her husband’s White House years, he told Steve Holland of Reuters.

But taking Rove at face value has often proved to be a big mistake. And on Sunday morning, just before Rove set off on a round of television interviews, Peter Wallsten of the Los Angeles Times kicked off a round of informed MSM conspiracy-theorizing.

“Why did Rove, who often stays in the background, step forward to deliver such public attacks — especially when the Democrats haven’t begun to choose their presidential candidate for 2008 and when the general election is more than a year away?

“The answer might seem obvious: Rove saw Clinton as a formidable opponent and wanted to get his licks in early.

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