Karl Rove: Palin Lacks 'Gravitas' to Be President, and Reality Show Won't Help, Either

(Oct. 28) -- Tell us how you really feel about her, Karl.

In an interview with the British newspaper The Telegraph, Karl Rove, President George W. Bush's so-called "brain," offered a few thoughts about Sarah Palin. Essentially, Rove argues that Palin, who left office midway through her first term in office as governor of Alaska, doesn't have what it takes to be elected president.

Surveying the prospective field of candidates, Rove told the Telegraph, "You can make a plausible case for any of them on paper, but it is not going to be paper in 2011. It's going to be blood, it's going to be sweat and tears and it's going to be effort."

As proof that Palin, specifically, was not up to that challenge, Rove cited the promotional teaser from Palin's new reality show, "Sarah Palin's Alaska," in which the tea party champion declares, "I would rather be doing this than in some stuffy old political office."

"With all due candor, appearing on your own reality show on the Discovery Channel," Rove said, "I am not certain how that fits in the American calculus of 'that helps me see you in the Oval Office.' "

Rove then continued with his assessment of Palin's chances of replacing President Barack Obama as the primary resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

"There are high standards that the American people have for it [the presidency] and they require a certain level of gravitas," Rove said, "and they want to look at the candidate and say, 'That candidate is doing things that gives me confidence that they are up to the most demanding job in the world.' "

In recent weeks, something of a feud has developed between Rove and Palin. In the wake of tea party candidate Christine O'Donnell's victory in the Delaware Republican Senate primary, Rove declared that O'Donnell couldn't win in the general election based on all the "nutty things" the candidate had said over the years. Palin, who has championed O'Donnell's candidacy, angrily shot back that Rove should "buck up" and get with the program, which he eventually did, to some extent.

And not every conservative voice agrees with Rove this time, either. At the right-leaning website HotAir, for instance, the blogger Allahpundit wrote:

Isn't the response to this simply that Palin plays by her own rules and is playing ... pretty darned well right now? The reality show is unorthodox, but being authentic and unpretentious and outdoorsy have always been key to her appeal, and the show feeds all of that.

And here's a sampling: