I misinterpreted an e-mail that I received from Allbaugh, which I discuss below. Allbaugh was forwarding an article from Huffington Post by Howard Fineman. The headline of the article was highlighted in the e-mail: “Karl Rove created Rick Perry–Now can he stop him?” The rest of my original post follows: Allbaugh is one of the few Bushies who supports Perry. There was never much love lost between Allbaugh and Rove, even when they were on the same team. I remember the 1998 Texas Association of Taxpayers meeting, when Bush was running for reelection as governor. Rove was on the panel, as was I, and he blurted out, “The governor’s race is over. It’s all about 2000 now.” Well, that wasn’t the official Bush line at all. Nobody was supposed to talk about 2000. Allbaugh was furious. It’s ancient history now, but I thought the fundamental mistake Bush made, second only to choosing Dick Cheney as his running mate, was bringing Rove inside the White House. When Bush was governor, Rove was on the outside. He came to meetings in the Capitol once a week. In the White House, Allbaugh was on the outside and Rove was on the inside as domestic policy adviser. Bush would have been much better served if he had made Allbaugh his chief of staff instead of Andy Card and sent Rove to the Republican National Committee. It’s not a good idea to put your political consultant in charge of policy.