The source for the Rove Blacklist story is NOT credible. It is from a web-based news site that is owned by the Rev. Moon, and is a sister site to The Washington Times, which is the National Inquirer + a right-wing slant masquerading as news.
http://www.insightmag.com/...
Published by News World Communications like its sister publication The Washington Times, Insight provides its subscribers an intelligence briefing on the Washington behind the lights and cameras. Insight features exclusive articles by top Washington reporters from some of the world's most serious news organizations.
They watch news sources. The sites they are watching are:
The Washington Times
The Drudge Report
Human Events Online (a self-described conservative on-line paper)
American Spectator
National Review Online
Briebart.com
All are conservative sites.
So we can speculate about whether Rove has a blacklist.
We can speculate whether Rove put this out to use the press as a means to intimidate Senators
But it's all speculation, and we need to recognize that.
*UPDATE:* I was asked to provide more info about Rev. Moon's connection to these media outlets.
http://www.mediachannel.org/originals/revmoon.shtml
A New Weapon In An Ideology War
In May 2000, the media arm of Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church bought itself electronic fingers. News World Communications, Moon's media company, purchased United Press International (UPI), a once venerable news wire service. UPI, which provided news for media worldwide, could offer a legitimizing platform for Moon's dogma — if the new owners can revive the decrepit agency.
And from this story (from media matters) about a erroneous piece of Washington Times propaganda
http://mediamatters.org/items/200504190003
The Washington Times previously made the same false claim in an April 1 article by Times White House correspondent Joseph Curl. UPI is owned by News World Communications, the Unification Church-controlled company that also owns The Washington Times.