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【正文】 esearch to date shows there is no such benefit. That39。s hardly reassuring to parents who last year spent $200 million on the Baby Einstein series. They might consider instead the advice of the American Academy of Pediatrics, which remends that infants under 2 not watch anything on a screen and just interact with their parents. NATION Rove39。s Final Retreat Thursday, Aug. 16, 2020 By JAMES CARNEY White House advisor Karl Rove makes a statement with President Gee W. Bush on the south lawn of the White House after announcing his plans to leave at the end of August in Washington, . on August 13, 2020. Chris Usher for TIME It wasn39。t so long ago that Karl Rove was being hailed as perhaps the greatest political strategist in American history, the architect, as President Bush dubbed him after election night in 2020, of three successive national election victories for the Republican Party. Even ideological foes admired Rove39。s seemingly unparalleled acumen. James Carville, another famous campaign strategist, wrote in this magazine that Rove39。s ability to win a second term for Bush was the signature political achievement of my lifetime. In Rove39。s grand plan, it was just the beginning. What he had really created, Rove believed, was a governing strategy that would produce a durable Republican majority that would rival the dominance of the Democratic Party during the middle 50 years of the 20th century. The historic realignment of American politics hasn39。t happened. And when Rove surprised all but the President, his family and a handful of close colleagues by announcing his resignation from the White House, sweeping accolades and gauzy visions were in scarce supply. Democrats, who have long viewed him with equal parts fear and loathing, heaped scorn on Rove upon hearing the news. (John Edwards39。 statement — Goodbye, good riddance — was the most succinct.) More telling was the reaction, or lack of it, from Republicans, who were mostly silent, content to be on summer recess. The party39。s presidential candidates largely avoided the subject. And the assessments of Rove39。s legacy by others have been mixed — or unfiving. In politics, nobody was better, Richard Viguerie, one of the founding fathers of the modern conservative movement, says of Rove. At policy, he was a disaster. Viguerie is echoing a critique monly heard in these gloomy days for the Republicans. With the President deeply unpopular, Republicans back in the minority on Capitol Hill and widespread handwringing that 2020 will usher a Democrat into the Oval Office, Rove39。s reputation has suffered along with his boss39。s approval ratings. The Iraq war, now well into its fifth year, has been an abysmal policy failure, causing some influential Republicans to defect from the cause and many others to consider doing so. The response to Hurricane Katrina created a damaging image of an inpetent and uncaring Administration. And the big domestic policies Rove was directly responsible for — the expensive expansion of Medicare, the spectacular collapse of Bush39。s effort to reform Social Security through partial privatization and the vain pursuit of immigration reform — have all created an unfortable climate for Republicans. Vulnerable incumbents are facing primary challenges, Republicans lag far behind Democrats in fund raising, and for the first time since Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, the party is in retreat. Rove, who was Bush39。s political guru and his most trusted domesticpolicy adviser, is receiving a large portion of blame for the general state of his party39。s affairs. Some historians will give him credit for his political shrewdness in getting Bush elected two times, says Robert Dallek, a prominent presidential historian. But because of his role in devising and implementing the Administration39。s policies, Rove won39。t be spared the harsh judgments of the Bush presidency. He has not been responsible for all Bush39。s policy miseries — Rove did not propose the invasion of Iraq, for example, or make the decision to send in too few troops to secure the country. But he did willingly exploit the political weapons that the war delivered by building campaigns around the theme that Democrats couldn39。t be trusted to protect America. Even in his heyday, Rove was never as faultless a political mastermind as his reputation suggested. I remember sitting at a piic table in Florida on the first Monday in November 2020 listening to Rove brashly predict that Bush would thump Al Gore with at least 320 electoral votes the next day. He was wrong, but he pulled off an unlikely win anyway. Not so in 2020, when Rove asserted to the end that Republicans would retain control of Congress. It was never clear — and still isn39。t — whether Rove was practicing extreme message discipline or simply deluding himself. In perhaps the surest sign that Rove39。s power has ebbed, erstwhile allies are now calling into question his vaunted skills as a campaign strategist. Tom DeLay, the former House majority leader who resigned under an ethics cloud two years ago, faulted Rove for turning the 2020 elections into a referendum on Bush and the war — to calamitous effect. And David Frum, a firstterm Bush speechwriter, decried as shortsighted Rove39。s strategy of demonizing the opposition and playing to his party39。s conservative base to win elections. Polarization, Frum opined disapprovingly in the New York Times, is Karl Rove39。s specialty. That polarization has left scattered land mines for the candidates who seek the Republican presidential nomination in 2020. As a top aide to one contender told me, You have to solidify your base — that39。s Republican Politics 101. But one thing we learned from 2020 is that we need moderates to create a majority. You can39。t alienate them. From Mitt Romney to Rudy Giuliani to John McCain,