Two days before the end of 1988, columnists Rowland Evans and Robert Novak ran a column calling George W. "the increasingly likely Republican candidate for governor ... engaging and articulate, more conservative than the president-elect and the family member with the purest Texas accent." In Texas, suspicious Democrats chortled, suspecting that they saw Karl Rove's handiwork churning forward with the same columnists that George W.'s mentor Lee Atwater had allegedly enjoyed planting stories with.

--Bill Minutaglio, First Son: George W. Bush and the Bush Family Dynasty, p. 235

(With a nod to Josh Marshall and Atrios, whose coverage of the Valerie Plame story has been relentless and outstanding.)