Jim Hightower

Karl Rove, the supreme sleaze-meister of negative political advertising, complained about a recent television ad: "I was frankly offended by it."

Wow – that's like a skunk saying some other critter stinks! What could possibly make an ad so offensive that Karl would gag? Hope, that's what. The sweet flower of optimism nauseates Karl.

The ad was Chrysler's Super Bowl spot. Aired during halftime of the game, it featured Clint Eastwood in a darkened factory, saying, "It's halftime in America, too. People are out of work and they're hurting," he said, but revival is coming from the the American people's can-do spirit: "Detroit's showing us it can be done." Our country can't be knocked out with one punch, Eastwood declared. "We get right back up again. Yeah. It's halftime, America. And our second half is about to begin."

Rove hated Chrysler's upbeat message and went on Fox TV to lambaste the 2008 bailout of America's auto industry, even though it was a success. Unable to stop himself from publicly stomping on one of the few flowers to bloom in our shattered economy, the sour and surly Karl even suggested the ad was a political favor from the industry to President Obama for providing rescue funds.

I hate to interrupt Rove's nasty tantrum with a dose of reality, but the auto bailout was initiated not by Obama, but by George W. Bush – for whom Rove worked! And, in an embarrassing happenstance, on the very day that Karl was fulminating on Fox, Bush himself was expressing pride in helping save the industry, pointedly saying: "I'd do it again."

Rove is the one with a crass partisan agenda. He's now amassing a $100 million war chest to carpetbomb Obama with negative TV ads, so he's "offended" by any positive message about America's future. Karl Rove is the sickness in today's politics.