Tom Pauken called this morning, chuckling out loud about the mini-tempest over Karl Rove’s appearance tonight at West Texas A&M University.

Pauken is a former Texas Republican Party chairman. He was controversial in his day, leading the party sharply to the right. He’s a conservative’s conservative — who has little regard for the “neocons” who dominated the administration of President George W. Bush.

Why the chuckle? Well, when Pauken was Texas GOP chair, one of his main adversaries was one Karl Rove. “He was always taking shots at me,” Pauken recalled in our conversation.

So, on this day, Rove — who made quite a few enemies while masterminding Bush’s two presidential election victories — is drawing brickbats from Democratic loyalists in the Panhandle just because he is speaking at WT’s convocation.

Pauken, meanwhile, is delivering the same kind of address this very evening up the road a bit, at Frank Phillips College in Borger. And no one’s said a word about Pauken’s appearance, even though he once was considered to be a “controversial” party chairman, even among his fellow Republicans.

We need to find a cure for amnesia.