After being blasted as "a Bush plant who called all the races wrong” by Donald Trump this summer, Fox News contributor Karl Rove now seems to have set his target back on the Democratic presidential field, repeatedly slamming Bernie Sanders as a ridiculously weak challenge to rival Hillary Clinton.
"I called Bernie Sanders an elderly dyspeptic Bilbo Baggins appearing like he was at the British Labour Party meeting," Rove bragged to Bill O'Reilly about his latest Wall Street Journal op-ed.
Titled, "Clinton Wallops a Cranky Hobbit," Rove's op-ed was his overlooked assessment of Tuesday's Democratic presidential debate. Compared to Clinton, the other Democratic presidential candidates on the debate stage were "three intellectual dwarves and a cranky hobbit," wrote Rove:
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders came off as an elderly, dyspeptic Bilbo Baggins attending a British Labour Party meeting. Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley sounded like an overly earnest, slightly too intense 1950s ad man making a bad pitch. Former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee was as hapless as a puppy stranded in a hurricane. And former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb, probably sensing how inconsequential he is, was angry all night. It’s hard to believe this crew will draw many viewers for future debates.
Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, reminded the crowd that she is a good debater who bested then-Sen. Barack Obama in most of their 2008 matchups. She was knowledgeable, in command and much less mechanical than usual. Team Clinton was right to be elated with her performance.
Rove told O'Reilly on Thursday that the debates reminded him that "the rest of the field are really weak. Really really weak." In his op-ed, Rove complained of Sanders's answer to the question of America's greatest national security threat:
He named climate change. One can imagine President Sanders ordering special forces to the headquarters of Exxon, Shell and Chevron to haul off oilmen to re-education camps cooled and heated by renewable energy.
Watch Rove attempt to roast Sanders on "The O'Reilly Factor," via Media Matters:
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