Rove in Limbo

The Opinionator

The revelation — dropped by Christopher Hitchens in an interview with New York magazine — that Karl Rove is an atheist has enabled the Bush administration to, at long last, deliver on its 2000 campaign promise to “change the tone” in Washington. Exhibit A: “I’ve never said this before, and never will again, but I’m with Karl Rove,” writes The American Prospect’s Ezra Klein on his personal blog. (Hitchens told New York, “Karl Rove is not a believer, and he doesn’t shout it from the rooftops, but when asked, he answers quite honestly. I think the way he puts it is, ‘I’m not fortunate enough to be a person of faith.’ “)

Klein elaborates, “I deeply envy individuals of faith, and would happily bargain away whatever satisfaction I supposedly derive from my bold freethinking for a sense of serenity, a perceived connection to a more permanent and grounding plane, and a steadying faith in the continuation of my consciousness.”

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Apparently, Rudy Can Fail

Rudy Giuliani continues to get slapped around by conservatives after his performance in last week’s debate. National Review editor Rich Lowry even criticizes the sine qua non of Giuliani’s candidacy, his alleged national-security credentials. “What’s Rudy’s foreign policy? ‘Offense.’ I really believe it doesn’t go much deeper than that,” Lowry writes at The Corner. “It’s a good sentiment, but if you’re going to be the national security candidate, it’d be advisable to know a lot more about national-security policy.”

In his Chicago Sun-Times column, Robert Novak says Fred Thompson bombed so badly with his Friday speech to Orange County Republicans that he may not run for president after all. (”The deeper concern by some supporters is whether the tepid reaction in Orange County will shake what had seemed his clear resolve to make the race,” Novak writes.)

In a long Sunday editorial, The Los Angeles Times editorial page advocates U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. The editorial begins, “Whatever future holds, the United States has not ‘lost’ and cannot ‘lose’ Iraq. It was never ours in the first place.”