Rove, in new book, swipes at Reid

One-time political adversaries Karl Rove and Sen. Harry Reid have crossed paths again.

This time, Rove in a book scheduled to be published next week, writes he had a 2005 conversation with Reid in which the then-Senate minority leader offered a deal to confirm three Republican judicial nominees even though he considered them "morally unfit."

Reid's talks with Republicans were reported widely at the time, as they came during the Senate showdown over judicial filibusters. But not quite in the way Rove describes.

“Reid got right to the point," Rove wrote about the telephone conversation. "The battle over judges was tying up the Senate. He wanted a way out. ‘Every one of these people is morally unfit to be on the bench,’ Reid said in a sweeping and unjustified condemnation. But if the president withdrew three of them, Reid would work to deliver Senate Democrats for the remaining two, with no filibuster.”

“I was stunned at his cynicism and willingness to treat judicial nominees as if they were minor-league baseball prospects to be traded,” Rove wrote, according to Mike Allen of Politico, who got an early copy of the book.

Reid's office has no immediate comment this morning.

Rove, who was raised in Sparks, was President George W. Bush's political guru, credited with masterminding Bush's election and re-election to the presidency and other GOP victories early in the decade.

Rove and Reid, who became Democratic leader in 2005, clashed from time to time. As a White House adviser Rove was involved in most of the Bush administration's major decisions, either as a trusted voice (as friends and Republicans said) or as a Machiavellian string-puller (as Democrats said).

Rove now is a political analyst for Fox News and makes public appearances.