Clarifications on the Rove/Hudson/exorcism/blessing

Hudson says he didn’t say it was an exorcism. Authors who interviewed him say well, maybe not, but it wasn’t a joke, either:

Hillary, Rove joked, was a reason the place needed to be purged of evil spirits," write James Moore and Wayne Slater in "The Architect: Karl Rove and the Master Plan for Absolute Power."

"That’s why he invited his … right-hand man for Catholic outreach in the 2000 presidential campaign, to arrange a Catholic blessing."

Deal Hudson — the aforementioned "right-hand man" — acknowledges he ushered a suburban Virginia priest into Rove’s office but says Rove never even joked about expelling Clinton’s spirit: His host simply wanted his work space blessed.

"It certainly came up that it was Hillary Clinton’s office, but Karl didn’t joke that way to me," said Hudson, who spoke with the authors two years ago. "It was a sober 5- to 10-minute ceremony … the fact that Karl Rove was in Hillary Clinton’s office was definitely not the reason for it."

Slater said Hudson was backtracking. "A formal exorcism didn’t happen, that’s true," Slater said. "But it was a real religious ceremony. Rove made more than a passing reference to Hillary Clinton. They talked about the fact, in a joking way, that this had been her office and Hillary was still in there."

Slater and Hudson both say they’re stumped over why Rove, known to be agnostic, wanted any blessing at all.