TNR’s Jon Chait offers the definitive take on the bizarre hypocrisy of Karl Rove’s Obama punditry:

The depiction of Barack Obama that has emerged from some quarters of the American right is that of a Bush-like figure. He is irresponsibly running up deficits and covering them up with budgetary gimmickry. Under the guise of healing rhetoric, he ruthlessly pressures fellow partisans in Congress to toe the line. He is “filling White House ranks with former lobbyists,” and his administration is devolving into general incompetence. And he has given unprecedented, Rove-like power to his political Svengali, David Axelrod. Oddly enough, the author of all these particular criticisms is Rove himself.

…Rove, as one would imagine, goes about his task in the bluntest manner, elevating shamelessness to a kind of performance art. He clucks disapprovingly that “senior White House staff meet for two hours each Wednesday evening to digest their latest polling and focus-group research.” The man who described the liberal reaction to September 11 as “offer therapy and understanding for our attackers” now sadly says that Obama “routinely ascribes to others’ views they don’t espouse.” There’s nothing unusual about political hacks becoming hack pundits, but you didn’t find, say, James Carville on CNN accusing George W. Bush of sexually exploiting White House interns.