Best Hometown Boy Made Good -- Even If He's Forgotten His Hometown

Karl Rove has come a long way since his days as the fresh-from-Colorado head of the College Republicans in the early '70s. He made a critical connection during that early political stint: He met George W. Bush, whose father was in charge of the Republican Party. And when Dubya finally moved into the White House, he took Rove with him as an advisor, putting him right in the office previously occupied by Hillary Clinton. "Rove is President Bush's political Svengali, Robespierre and wizard all rolled into one," said an analyst with the Hudson Institute just six months after Rove hit town. But he's not much of a diplomat -- or a demographer. In hot water over a crack he made about a small New Hampshire town's intellectual capabilities, Rover told the Berlin Daily Sun: "Were I ever to belittle small-town America, I would have to do a lot of explaining to my friends and neighbors in Golden, Arvada and Kokomo, Colorado...the places where I grew up." He'd really have a lot of explaining to do in Kokomo: It was buried under a Climax Mine tailings pond over two decades ago.