The most disturbing aspect of Rove’s personality is his rabid misogyny and contempt for women. It’s not a surprise his wife left him.
Bush had a really good first term. In the second term, when he really started listening to Rove, that’s when things got screwed up. Karl wanted Bush to stop defending himself against his critics. Most people think that if a person has nothing to say in the face of criticism, they must be stumped. That more than anything else fed the fire that Bush is really stupid.
After not defending himself for years, what issue does he come out strong on? Illegal immigration, and he’s on the wrong side of it! Then he really went off the rails with TARP and bank bailouts (”we have to abandon free-market principles in order to save it”). The economy really started to tank just as GW was leaving, which gave 0bama a ton of ammo.
Bush won both terms by the skin of his teeth against opponents that were positively awful. That’s not the stuff of genius in my book. And Rove’s advice and tactics were a complete disaster when it came to actually running a presidential administration.
Bush did great when he was running things as a conservative. When he went progressive, it all crashed and burned.