Is Karl Rove helping persecute Julian Assange?

In a classic example of the adage "politics makes strange bedfellows," says Andrew Kreig in The Huffington Post, Karl Rove appears to be helping Sweden collude with the Obama administration to prosecute WikiLeaks chief Julian Assange. Rove has been advising Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt for the past two years, says Kreig, and, according to a "reliable political source," the suspicious rape charges in Sweden and rumored U.S. extradition "all [bear] Karl's signature." Is Rove really in the middle of this, or is that just a leftist fantasy? (Watch Rove discuss the "hunt" for Assange)

Rove and Sweden both fear Assange: It is "probably is not a coincidence" that Assange's legal woes began in Sweden, says Roger Shuler in Legal Schnauzer. After all, WikiLeaks has embarrassed Sweden and its leader. But Rove's loyalty to his new patron Reinfeldt aside, "why would Rove be interested in corralling Julian Assange?" Well, for starters, "to help protect the Bush legacy," which has taken the hardest hit from the WikiLeaks, and maybe even to "protect himself."

"Is Karl Rove driving the effort to prosecute Julian Assange?"

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Does the left's Rove hatred know no bounds? This "conspiracy theory" is so "absolutely loony-tunes," the "price of tin foil is about to leap up," says Jeff Dunetz in Yid With Lid. Do "progressives" really believe that the Obama administration and socialist Sweden would plot with "the man they consider Dr. Evil"?

"Huffpo blames Karl Rove for prosecution of Julian Assange"

There's certainly something Rove-esque about this: Whether or not he's directly involved, this "audacious and important" take-down of Assange certainly fits Rove's agenda, says Kathy Kattenburg in The Moderate Voice. Rove and his fellow "conservatives" and libertarians "fear government power" when it comes to something like health care, but they "don't mind it at all — indeed, applaud it — when it's about prosecuting journalists."

"Well, this is a surprise... NOT"