Is  Herman Cain really not “up to the task” of being president? That's what Karl Rove, a former senior advisor to President George W. Bush, said of the GOP candidate in an interview on Fox News Monday. Brandishing a white board listing times when Cain has been fuzzy or flip-flopped on key issues, from abortion to foreign policy, Rove said that as a result of those missteps, his candidacy may have peaked.

“The whole effect of this is to not create an image, I think, of him as being a flip-flopper, I think it is to create an image of him as not being up to the task,” Rove said, “and that’s really deadly for a presidential campaign.”

Cain pushed back at Rove that same day in an interview with the Washington Examiner.

"It's a good thing the voters are not looking at Karl Rove's little white board," the former Godfather's Pizza CEO said. "I believe it is a deliberate attempt to damage me because I am not, quote unquote, the establishment choice. But why not go with the choice that the people seem to like?"

According to Cain, Rove’s comments were “a deliberate attempt” to damage his campaign to help Romney win the GOP nod. He also accused Rove of providing Democrats with ammunition they can use to attack him if he does win the nomination, but Rove told the publication that he has no personal favorites and it’s Cain who is providing “material for attack ads.”

He also said that there’s still time for Cain to recover from his gaffes.

"Every candidate is entitled to a few mulligans," Rove said. "Because of his energy and passion, he gets more than the normal number of mulligans. But he's running out of them. And he should not expect everybody to be cheerleading every mistake he makes."

(Photos from left: Tom Pennington/Getty Images,  Steve Pope/Getty Images)