Karl Rove offered praise for Barack Obama in a Wall Street Journal op-ed piece. This is the same Karl Rove who was said to be the “political brain” behind George W. Bush and the mastermind of his two victorious presidential campaigns. Rove wrote that President-elect Barack Obama has assembled a “first rate economic team that has provided surprisingly positive clarity.”

The selection by Barack Obama of New York Fed Chairman Timothy Geithner for Treasury Secretary and Larry Summers, the former Clinton-era Treasury Secretary and President of Harvard University, as chief of the National Economic Council was especially lauded by Rove in his op-ed piece.

Rove wrote that, “the announcement of Mr. Obama’s economic team was reassuring. He’s generally surrounded himself with intelligent, mainstream advisers. Investors, workers and business owners can only hope that, over time, this new administration’s economic policies bear more of their market-oriented imprint.”

The choice by Obama of Berkley Economics Professor Christina Romer as his pick to head up his team of economics advisers also won Rovian praise.

If Barack Obama is already getting the thumbs of from Karl Rove, could Rush Limbaugh be next? Probably not a chance of that, but Karl Rove’s piece in the Wall Street Journal clearly shows that Barack Obama is moving forward in his transition in a politically skillful manner.