Karl, I hardly knew ye

"Mom, who is Karl Rove?"
I shouted this question into my cell phone about five years ago, just moments after completely Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism written exam. The exam is part of the school's application process, and involves essays, grammar tests, and an identification portion, which included a list of news makers from the previous year; your task was to identify each person, place or thing as thoroughly as possible in the time allotted. Having a pretty good memory for these things, I made my way through the list with relative ease, smug in the knowledge many of the other test takers were clearly having difficulties. In the end, there were only two names for which I did not have a clear answer. The first: Lee Bollinger. Since the Enron scandal was still unfolding at the time and since I was not in any way capable of willing my brain into absorbing the names of everyone involved in the Enron scandal, I assumed Mr. Bollinger must be one of the many players, and so I scrawled, with only seconds left, "individual implicated in the Enron scandal." Ironically, Lee Bollinger was the newly appointed president of Columbia University (this gaffe did not keep me from being admitted to the school, I might add).

The second person? Yes, Karl Rove (or, according to my exam, "another individual implicated in the Enron scandal"). For the record, my mom had to go to the computer and look him up; at the time he wasn't infamous only in small circles. For the last five years, every time I hear the name Karl Rove, I immediately remembered that he made up 50% of my errors on identification portion of my entrance exam. Instead of his name connoting is own failures, it only reminded me of mine--even if there was some humor and irony to be had in both mistakes.

So goodbye, Karl Rove. This is the end of an era--for both of us. As they say, thanks for the memories.