Why do the media fawn over the likes of Karl Rove? He's the heir to Lee Atwater, and his scumbag tactics are legendary.

Remember the Willie Horton ad?

Atwater's single most notorious bit of work came during the 1988 campaign, in the form of the Willie Horton ad used against Dukakis. The ad attacked a prison furlough program that Dukakis had supported while governor of Massachusetts. Horton, a convicted killer who is black, escaped while in the program and raped a woman. The ad said Dukakis was soft on crime, and made prominent use of Horton's glowering mug shot. Atwater said he was going to make Horton Dukakis's "running mate." The ad pretty much became the touchstone for demonizing black men in political campaigning. In archival footage, we see Atwater denying that he or the Bush campaign had anything to do with the ad, insisting he'd never even seen it. Then Forbes cuts to one of Atwater's friends describing how, before the ad was ever aired, Atwater called him into his office, showed him the ad, said he was going to set it up as the work of an independent committee (and thus, with no fingerprints) and asked what he thought. The friend says that he told Atwater it was appalling, racist and that it was going to "follow you to your grave." -- What is clear, from watching this talented man and his view of politics and America, is that his corrosive vision has seeped into the nation's political groundwater.

That's the man Rove learned from, and he is his prize pupil. With Rove's help, Atwater turned politics into a smear contest. Eventually, they all helped lead this country down the drain with their boy Bush.

Still, Karl Rove is treated with reverence, and it's sickening. On Bill O'Reilly's show earlier this week, he was saying that Cheney and the CIA should never inform Congress of what thy are doing because it won't remain a secret so, hey, screw them and the law.

Think Progress has more:

Rove then appeared to make the argument that executive branch should not inform Congress of what it is doing: ROVE: Look, it’s interesting. The CIA briefed Congress to this, I guess, in June. And the Congress immediately leaks it. That, itself is, a violation, I think, of several statutes and indicative of why it is so dangerous to give Congress information. To clarify, Congress did not “leak” details of the secret program. The Wall Street Journal cited “former intelligence officials familiar with the matter” in its report. But Rove’s comment seems to confirm the Bush administration’s motives for routinely attempting to hide information from Congress.

Rove lies about what happened when the facts are clear as a bell. And he conveniently forgets that the Bush administration leaked the name of a CIA operative named Valerie Plame just to smear her husband Joe Wilson because he told the truth about their lies.

Here's a newsflash to this pompous ass: The CIA is required by law to inform Congress on what they are doing. Period. There are no exceptions.

Glenn Greenwald finds a typical MSM story regarding Dick Cheney's lawbreaking. Are any of you surprised?