Rove attacking Hillary Clinton?

This column just didn't jibe with the talking points I'm being fed.

Is Republican strategist Karl Rove attacking Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton because he really wants to help her win the Democratic presidential nomination? Do Democrats seem paranoid when they suspect that he is? If so, as the saying goes, that doesn't mean somebody is not out to get them.

I have a slightly different theory. As Rove departs his long-held post at the ear of President Bush, I think his recent bash-Hillary tour of media interviews is the first Band-Aid in his attempts to patch up the damage he left behind, both to his party's prospects and his president's legacy.

After all, with Republicans largely dispirited and in disarray in their search for a clear front-runner in the presidential race, what better way to pull the forces together than to wave their long-time foe Hillary Clinton in their faces?
(Orlando Sentinel)

The "bash-Hillary tour," eh? The sole evidence of bashing Senator Clinton from the story was Rove noting Clinton's negative polling data. If that's bashing Clinton, than what are the nation's newspapers doing when they print a story on the latest approval ratings for President Bush?

Let's try to be serious, at least for a moment. Polling data is one of the primary concerns of political strategists, and the negative feelings aroused by Clinton were a campaign issue on the left over a year before Rove's weekend "bash-Hillary tour."

Here's the transcript (a FOX news interview of Rove by Chris Wallace). Scroll down about half way for the mention of Clinton. There's no bashing.

This seems to be a case of the MSM taking a Clinton talking point and doing the legwork of spreading her message.

SEN. HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON, D-N.Y.: Today Karl Rove attacked me again. I feel so lucky that I now am giving them such heartburn.