Rove still playing puppeteer with Democrats

Pulling Democrats' strings, that's for sure.  Or are their legs getting pulled? Tim Grieve reports that Karl Rove's apparent obsession with Hillary Clinton may indeed be an obsession with a different candidate altogether.  The rationale:

In a fundraising e-mail sent to supporters, Edwards advisor Joe Trippi says that Rove's attacks on Clinton mean he's really worried about . . . Edwards. "Rove and the Republicans want our opponents to win," Trippi writes, "because they know John will be the strongest candidate in the general election."

There's certainly some history here. As the Los Angeles Times noted last week, Rove and his people went hard after John Kerry early on during the 2004 campaign because in the hope that Democrats would rally around Kerry rather than Edwards, the candidate they thought would pose a tougher challenge for Bush in the general election.

Too complicated for this voter.   I think I'll just vote for Barack.

Is it possible that Rove is using the reverse-psychology tactic all over again? Sure. But if he is, wouldn't he be gunning for Barack Obama rather than Edwards? Well, maybe. Obama holds a substantial lead over Edwards in national polls of Democrats -- they both trail Clinton, of course -- but the most recent Quinnipiac University poll has Edwards performing slightly better than Obama in hypothetical head-to-head match-ups with Rudy Giuliani, John McCain and Fred Thompson.

Sheesh!  Emigration to Canada begins to make real sense.