Karl Rove, Rove's role in the Romney era, and 24/7 kittens

Craig Unger has an interesting Salon piece about Karl Rove,  his waning grip on this year's presidential election, and why that won't matter in the long run.

Evidence of the waning grip:

• Romney's failure to stay on point (e.g., the 47% comment)
• Clint Eastwood
• An unusual number of references to murder (e.g., the "sink Todd Akin" comment at the RNC, and the quote from the piece that follows)

Rove’s comment about Akin was not the first time this campaign that he linked himself to murder. At the Republican convention in Tampa, in response to a question I asked him at a CSPAN-televised event, Rove falsely asserted that my new book, “Boss Rove: Inside Karl Rove’s Secret Kingdom of Power,” accused him of being a murderer — an apparent reference to the 2008 death of his computer guru, Mike Connell. Again, the “murder” comment was off point and completely unnecessary.

Let’s get this straight: Out of the blue, this highly disciplined, message-centric Machiavellian strategist has completely unnecessarily associated himself with murder. Twice. What is Karl Rove smoking?

• Akin's refusal to withdraw despite Rove pulling all money from the Missouri race

And why this doesn't matter:

Rove is playing the long game, Unger writes. If the Romney campaign continues to flounder, Rove can (and indeed has already begun to) divert super PAC funds from the presidential campaign to key Senate races around this country. Of course, this won't be without consequence — the establishment can't ignore the presidential race without having some negative effects on congressional races. Plus, the voter ID laws he's been promoting for a decade stand to affect more than 5 million voters (read: Democrats) in more than 23 states in November. 

And... what this means:

"Meanwhile, whatever the outcome of the election, Karl Rove is playing the long game. He’s vying for complete control of the party. He still has his hands on the super PAC purse strings — and that money means he runs the Republican Party. Even if Romney loses, he will still be in control. It’s just that he may be thinking about 2016 a bit earlier than he had planned."

Read the full story on Salon. Then, after you've seen enough of Rove, check out the Washington Animal Rescue League's 24/7 live streaming kitten cam. There are kittens. They are hanging out in a little cardboard Capitol. Sometimes they play, sometimes they sleep, sometimes they walk up to the camera and lick their crotches.