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" Dear Karl, I owe you an apology, sir.  And at the same time, I&amp;#039;ve got to tell you just how disappointed \u2014 &amp;quot;devastated&amp;quot; is probably a better word \u2014 I am.  I&amp;#039;ve been an admirer of your work for years and years, going back to the early &amp;#039;80s in Austin, way back when you were a little fish in a little pond and nobody was paying much attention. But there you were, perfecting your dark arts. Now I can&amp;#039;t tell you how many people I&amp;#039;ve regaled over the years with stories from your legend: You know, that time you broke in to the campaign headquarters of an opponent in Illinois and stole letterhead and sent out a thousand letters inviting folks over for pizza and girls? That was awesome. Or that time on the Clements for Governor campaign in Texas when you bugged your own office, got lots of publicity, and blamed it on the Democrats? Or \u2014 wait, wait! \u2014 that time when you set fire to your campaign headquarters, got lots of publicity, and blamed it on the Democrats? Or that time in South Carolina when you got people to say that John McCain&amp;#039;s daughter Bridget, whom McCain and his wife had adopted from Mother Teresa&amp;#039;s orphanage in Bangladesh, was instead McCain&amp;#039;s lovechild with a black prostitute? Man, that took balls. Or that time that you, in a classic you move, got that senator guy from Georgia, Saxby Chambliss \u2014 who&amp;#039;d been deferred, like, a dozen times from Vietnam on account of a &amp;quot;football knee&amp;quot; \u2014 to make an ad that compared his opponent, Max Cleland, to Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein? And there was Old Max \u2014 who&amp;#039;s got no legs and just one arm on account of that grenade that blew them off in Vietnam \u2014 just sputtering in his wheelchair like he couldn&amp;#039;t believe somebody would have the cajones \u2014 the courage, Karl \u2014 to say something like that about a guy who left three limbs on the battlefield. Damn, that was good! But you were just getting started. You outed that CIA agent \u2014 you know, the one working for American intelligence \u2014 just so you could humiliate her husband (who claimed to be some ambassador), who was spreading wild stories about how y&amp;#039;all went and made up a reason to start a whole war. Man, you showed them! Or that time you leaned on the feds, who made up criminal charges against the governor of Alabama and that dude went straight to jail!  And that&amp;#039;s just the short list of your accomplishments. Karl, man, you are the best there ever was. And until yesterday, when I read your book Courage and Consequence (even your title takes balls!), I was simply in awe of your brass and your vision. All of these years \u2014 in bars, around the water cooler, at church \u2014 I&amp;#039;ve told these stories. Only now to find that none of them are true. As now I read that you disavow, disown, distance yourself, and claim disdain for all of these beautiful tactics \u2014 some of the most patriotic acts in American history, if I may say so. In fact, you even go so far as to attack Esquire&amp;#039;s Ron Suskind for writing that you had been the &amp;quot;prime suspect&amp;quot; in the awesome slander of Bridget McCain, and you even say that it was you, Karl Rove, who shut down the only South Carolina push poll that you caught wind of. Man, I am reeling. Speechless. Bereft.  With Karl Rove now abdicating the Karl Rove position in American life, is there nothing we can count on anymore? Man, this hurts, and it just makes no sense, Mr. Rove. I mean, for you to have had such proximity to all these acts of courage, but played no role in them \u2014 well, it&amp;#039;s like you&amp;#039;re Forrest Gump, the Forrest Gump of American political life.  Oh, head hurts. (Rub temples.) Wait. Wait a doggone second! You had me there, Rove! This book \u2014 this play for benign respectability, this gloss on a history that we all know well, the self-justifications, the confusing and strangely humanizing personal story \u2014 is the greatest dirty trick of all time. Ever.   Damn you, Rove, you marvelous bastard: You had me. You totally had me. You, sir, have still got it. And all is right with the world. Sincerely, Your Biggest Fan "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a7106/new-karl-rove-book-031110/>