On Friday night (1/18/13), Karl Rove seems to have officially returned to Fox News in the guise of a neutral analyst. He was summoned by The O’Reilly Factor to explain why, as O’Reilly put it, “I’ve seen a change in President Obama’s demeanor since he was re-elected. He’s a bit more rigid and impatient with those who disagree with him.”

As evidence that “others have noticed it as well,” O’Reilly played a clip of Texas Tea Party Senator Ted Cruz telling Laura Ingraham that President Obama has “drunk the Kool Aid.” And guess what? Rove said he had just written a Wall Street Journal editorial on the very subject of Obama’s demeanor! How much more fair and balanced can you get?

And was there a single Fox News viewer out there who didn’t know that Rove was going to tell O'Reilly viewers that yes, Obama is more “confrontational?” Or that he’d go on to malign President Obama for much of the segment – and pretend he was just analyzing? For example, when O’Reilly asked Rove why Obama is more confrontational (as if Rove were in a position to know), Rove said it’s because Obama has a “small agenda,” which is to win back the House. “It ain’t gonna happen,” Rove added. Then, in case you were worried Rove had lost any of his hypocritical arrogance during his hiatus, he said that President Obama should work more toward bringing the country together instead.

In fact, Rove seems not to have learned anything from his electoral debacle. Remember when Politico reported on November 1, less than one week before the election, that Rove said Mitt Romney was “winning at every level of the numbers game, ‘from polling data to early voting?’” Or when Rove threw a hissy fit of objection when Fox News called the election for Obama? On Friday, Rove told O’Reilly that the 2014 midterms will not be “a pleasant election for the president” and “he’s not in great shape.”