The inimitable Craig Crawford ponders this question and more in his column in this issue of CQ Weekly (free version of full article not yet available at link):

In early February, President Bush promoted his campaign guru from his political perch as senior adviser to the much more influential post of deputy chief of staff. Getting responsibility for both politics and policy has not produced the results for Rove that both he and his boss clearly expected.

In fact, Rove’s ascension seems to have come right at the time when things started going downhill for Bush. The president’s Social Security agenda, his primary focus in the past 60 days, appears to be in tatters — even among congressional Republicans. The confirmation of John R. Bolton to be U.N. ambassador is in doubt. The Senate is up in arms and on the verge of paralysis over the White House-backed plan to end filibusters of judicial nominations. And the president’s hammer in the House, Majority Leader Tom DeLay, is on the ropes, facing an ethics investigation by his congressional colleagues and possibly a criminal investigation in Texas.

It has been a rough couple of months for the president, and, by extension, for Rove. These past weeks ended with Bush posting his lowest public approval ratings since the dog days before Sept. 11. Could it be that Rove’s untouchable political genius has already met its limits in the policy arena?

Bush’s troubles might stem from Rove’s management style, which seems to depend on three elements: power, intimidation and secrecy. Bush and Rove like holding all the cards. They work best from a position of total power. They get in trouble when they cannot command the shots, as in getting Congress to enact the Social Security changes they want.

I think it's a bit hasty to proclaim Rove a drag on Bush's political agenda, though Crawford raises some very interesting points. Most notable is the fact that Bush and Rove "work best from a position of total power" but "get in trouble when they cannot command the shots." Indeed, on Social Security, the President must get the support of about a half a dozen Democrats in the Senate for his privatization plan to have any chance at passage, and strong-arming a bad budget through Congress and invoking the nuclear option certainly has not endeared the President to the opposition. Rather, it has emboldened them to battle to the end on fights they can win.

This all having been said, I return to my contention that it is too soon to so denigrate Rove. Bush has won a series of important, if somewhat easy (given the partisan makeup of Congress) legislative battles, including the Budget (passage with Medicaid cuts intact), Bankruptcy "Reform," etc. So it would be better to wait at least until the fall -- and perhaps even after the midterm elections -- to proclaim Rove's tenure as deputy chief of staff as significantly less than successful.