Although Barack Obama can count on one hand the number of houses he and his wife own, the candidate's first real financial security was derived from his success in the publishing world with his memoir Dreams from My Father. The powerful agent who helped turn Obama into a literary franchise is lawyer Bob Barnett, who gets profiled in today's Financial Times. The mysterious Barnett also boasts the Clintons, the Cheneys, and most of Bush's cabinet as loyal clients. How exactly did he become the guy behind the guy?Locking Obama up before he even arrived in Washington turned into a brilliant steal for publisher Crown, but at the time the income from Obama's three book deal was crucial for the senator's rising star. Barnett made it happen for the young pol, and he did it far cheaper than most agents. Indeed, much of Barnett's success in attracted big-time clients can be traced back to his unusual practice of forgoing the usual commission on a book, and just billing his clients hourly for their time. Barnett's influence doesn't end in the publishing world, as last decade he was given the unenviable task of informing Hillary Clinton about her husband's indiscretions with Monica Lewinsky. Despite being employed by friends on both side of the aisle, Barnett isn't universally admired. His first big sale was Geraldine Ferraro's autobiography Ferraro: My Story, and literary agent Esther Newberg doesn't recall Barnett having an impressive debut or career:

♦ Bad day ahead? Stocks fell sharply in Europe and Asia overnight and ugly corporate earnings have investors worried. [MW]
♦ Wachovia, which is being acquired by Wells Fargo, reported a third-quarter loss of $23.9 billion. [Bloomberg]
♦ Yahoo says it will lay off 10 percent of its work force. [NYT]
♦ Federal prosecutors looking into the collapse of Lehman have subpoenaed other firms to find out if their analysts were misled by Lehman execs. [WSJ]

The cornerstone of so-called Rovian politics is "attack your opponent on his strengths." At its most basic, perfect level, it means attack war hero John Kerry for being a spineless anti-American coward. McCain tried it early this season: Obama is popular and energizing, just like a dumb blonde celebrity. Everyone cooed and said "oh good one Mr. McCain." But that line wasn't enough to get McCain through the end of the summer, let alone the fall. So now, yes, Steve Schmidt and John McCain have developed and employed a brilliant new twist on Karl Rove's old dictum: attack your opponent on your own weaknesses! In McCain's terrible new speech today on how none of us know who this mysterious and dangerous terrorist Barack Obama actually is, he says, literally, that Obama gets "touchy" and "angry" whenever he's attacked or criticized or accused of lying. As Josh Marshall points out, this is called "projection," because Obama actually remains infuriatingly cool and collected in the face of things that would drive us insane. Meanwhile, McCain is notorious for his temper, for his pettiness, and for his grudges. So naturally McCain found that he was being criticized by everyone for lying all the time, and he decided that meant that he was hitting a nerve with Obama (and not just all the dudes in the press who used to have man-crushes on him), and decided further to expand this into a whole new line of attack. A line of attack based entirely on projection. So when we said "a brilliant new twist on Karl Rove's old dictum" what we actually meant was "a sad foray into the extreme disconnect between perception and reality that is probably the logical conclusion of Rovian politics."

This is our LAST DITCH ATTEMPT to stir anticipation for the VP debate set to air in about 18.3 minutes. It's Bill O'Reilly talking to Karl Rove about precisely how dumb Sarah Palin is or is not. O'Reilly assures everyone the vice presidential nominee reads the work of professional John McCain nemeses over at the Times. And Rove postulates that the reason she didn't bring up Plessy v. Ferguson when Katie Couric asked her about Supreme Court decisions is that she just got flustered and froze. Oh yes, that is totally why the landmark decision legalizing abortion was the first and only decision that came to her beautiful mind. How random a brain fart was that? Especially since Palin has shown so much concern for the stubborn legacy of slavery, like that time she mocked Obama for being a community organizer.Anyway, if she only had "confidence" like O'Reilly she would be fine. Because "confidence" is what the Sarah Palins of this world need more of.

By email, by telephone and by cable television comes a consistent message for Gawker: We should all be woken in the middle of the night, hauled off to jail, and locked away maybe forever for publishing some of Sarah Palin's emails, including her daughter Bristol's phone number and husband's previously-known email address. Some people would also like us shot, because God only knows the terrible things that can be done to someone with email addresses and phone numbers. Bizarrely, the only person who disagreed with our legal culpability was a Scientologist, because despite the many negative things we've written about that "church" the law is apparently clear: "Gawker's fine," Fox News's Greta Van Susteren said. Click the video icon to watch the TV coverage; some emails and a voice mail we "liberal Jews" received is after the jump.

"I totally don't trust Rove when he says that McCain has gone too far," writes Berkeley blogger Dave Winer, of Dubya's former campaign mastermind. "I wouldn't take the bait and pass this on as the Obama folk are doing. There's got to be a virus in there somewhere. Some devious trap that springs later in this process." Aw shoot, now if that doesn't happen, I'll be disappointed.

Kudos today to James Hibberd, the Hollywood Reporter TV blogger who is perhaps the only reason we have any clue (or rather, care to have any clue) about the horrors unfolding presently at the Television Critics Association summer press tour. Apparently the Florence Henderson/Ed Asner days are over, with the one-two punch of confirmed buddies Karl Rove and Seth MacFarlane taking over Monday as the off-color star tandem to beat.

The Associated Press' Washington bueau chief, Ron Fournier, has been pissing various people off with his "accountability journalism" since he was installed in May. His bitter former boss at AP trashed his credentials to Politico, and influential website Talking Points Memo wondered if he wasn't responsible for the AP's "atrocious campaign coverage this year." Fournier has said his new approach, which involves taking more pointed stands within news articles, is driven by an in-depth examination of the facts, while critics say it is simply biased, advocacy journalism dressed up in new clothes. Fournier has had the backing of top AP brass in New York, but that may soon change, given the following recap of a 2004 email from Fournier to then-White House senior advisor Karl Rove, published this evening on TPM:

GQ interviews beloved and chatty former Bush adviser Karl Rove. Q: "Wait, quickly: Do you believe Roger Clemens?" A: "Um, yes, I do." Ok! Rove also repeatedly asks to go off the record whenever he wants to deliver a POTENTIALLY CONTROVERSIAL opinion, because he, as a true friend of The Free Press, loves nothing more than disseminating his manipulative bullshit via anonymous quotes and suggestions in millions of news stories. On the record, he's just a bit of a testy dork. Off the record he'll tell you what an anonymous Republican operative really thinks of Barack Obama! [GQ]

Are dirty hippies and anti-war wusses breaking up your awesome conservative circle-jerk? Well now you have something funny to scream at them! Former George W. Bush bag man and current Fox News talker Karl Rove was giving a speech at George Washington University Friday when some students held up a sign reading "WAR CRIMINAL" and started trying to shout down the pudgy master of evil. Ho-hum. But as they were being escorted out by security, some Right Wing funsters got up a chant of "Tase 'Em! Tase 'Em!" You know, coz that one guy said, "Don't tase me, bro"? Video after the jump.

Karl Rove loves his iPhone. He uses it all the time! (The entire Bush administration has good reason to love the little gizmo.) The roly-poly Machiavelli also recently admitted to owning a damn MacBook Air, the laptop whose sole selling point is its ability to fit in an envelope. Drug-addled radio tyrant Rush Limbaugh had to ask Apple to help fix his own new Mac. Your favorite propagandists love the sleek design and friendly usability of Apple products. Crypto-fascists—they're just like us! Which brings us to this plea: can we please, please end the tiresome trope of Apple having any sort of hip sensibility?

I hate to sound sort of diffident about it but it strikes me that a lot of people on the right have got active lives and are doing other things and the idea of spending a lot of time on the Internet and taking their talents and displaying them there is not something they really do. But I'd like to see more of it, very creative conservatives using the Internet for those purposes.

Roly-poly Republican strategist Karl Rove has a bit of a bad reputation, what with his mastery of quasi-legal dirty tricks, spearheading of underhanded whisper campaigns, and cut-throat dedication to enabling the most damaging presidential administration in living memory. So everyone basically thinks of him as a figure of cartoonish evil, like Dick Cheney. But now that he's on Fox News as a commentator, the liberals who run the rest of the media are shocked to find that they actually like Karl Rove!

The press has been barred from covering Karl Rove's speech today at Choate, the chichi Connecticut prep school. Sort of like Rove was barred a few weeks ago from delivering the school's spring graduation address. "This is a special program, a school event, and we typically don't invite the media to a school event," a spokeswoman said. "It's our standard way of doing things." Well then!

So—Karl Rove is going to be a Fox News contributer! What an exciting and unexpected move. We hope it goes well for them! It probably won't, though. Because Karl Rove, that Machiavellian Boy Genius, is terrible on-air and also not even particularly adept at analyzing politics. He's a great smear campaigner, sure! But he's not even Lee Atwater's equal in that dubious regard. The man micromanaged one of the least popular presidencies of the last hundred years, parlayed untold goodwill and love into worldwide scorn, and also lost two of Bush's most important elections. Namely the 2006 midterms and, oh right, Bush's initial election itself. The only people who still think Karl Rove is some sort of brilliant political mind are semi-literate Kos commenters. And Roger Ailes, apparently. Even Keith Olbermann thinks Karl is only the third worst person in the world! See for yourself, after the jump.

Oh, well, why the hell not. Karl Rove is the newest contributor at Fox News, according to Drudge, who says the former Bush advisor will be "likely used throughout Super Tuesday coverage." We can't wait for his dispassionate and not at all demonic insights.

If only MoveOn.org knew that all it took to push Karl Rove around was a bunch of pissed-off tony prep-schoolers. After student protests (and a Drudge link) the Bush advisor has backed out of his commitment as this year's graduation speaker at Connecticut boarding school Choate Rosemary Hall. You know, where Ivanka went? Aww, whassamatter, Karl? Can't take a little high-class heckling? [AP]

Simon and Schuster—publishers of Hillary Clinton and of the notable "God Wants You to Be Rich"!—have got the Karl Rove book. [NYO]

Pudgy angel-faced devil and former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove left the White House under a cloud of reeking suspicion and ignominy. Amazingly, it took Newsweek only three months to scoop him up. Well done! Rove will have a column in which he muses on the 2008 Presidential elections. [Newsweek Editor Jon Meacham also retained the Daily Kos' Markos Moulitsas as a counterpoint to Rove.] To be fair, the man known as "turdblossom" has been remarkably open with the media in the past. After all, he even told Robert Novak all he knew of ex-CIA agent Valerie Plame!