Understanding Karl

As the scandal involving Karl Rove has evolved I've heard many journalists and several Democrats say things like "I'll take him at his word" and "Let's give him the benefit of the doubt."

To understand Rove you need to know only this (from Newsweek's Howard Fineman):

"In the World According to Karl Rove you take the offensive, and stay there. You create a narrative that glosses over complex, mitigating facts to divide the world into friends and enemies, light and darkness, good and bad, Bush versus Saddam. You are loyal to a fault to your friends, merciless to your enemies. You keep your candidate's public rhetoric sunny and uplifting, finding others to do the attacking. You study the details, and learn more about your foes than they know about themselves. You use the jujitsu of media flow to flip the energy of your enemies against them. The boss never discusses political mechanics in public. But in fact everythingis political-and everyone is fair game."