Karl Rove will leave US President George Bush's side credited with near mystical and Machiavellian political powers and reviled by Democrats who repeatedly fell victim to his shadowy genius.
But the man dubbed "Bush's brain" and celebrated by the president as the "architect" of his two election victories also fell short of his cherished goal of forging a permanent, conservative Republican majority in Washington.
Rove, one of the most influential Washington players in decades, yesterday announced his resignation at the end of the month on the conservative editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal, after six-and-a-half years at the epicenter of Bush's stormy presidency.
Officially deputy chief of staff at the White House, Rove's was the hidden hand on the hard-knuckle politics which drove Bush through a disputed election win in 2000 and the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001.
Rove's legend was only slightly dimmed when the Democrats grabbed power in both the House of Representatives and the Senate last year.
He also leaves office with Bush's presidency apparently mired in a lame duck twilight, after the spectacular failure of immigration reform and with the entanglement of US troops in Iraq overshadowing the White House.
Rove will be remembered for putting an unyielding conservative imprint on Bush policy, from sweeping tax cuts and Supreme Court nominees to tapping the power of the religious right and social conservative voters.
Bush liked to call his chief political adviser his "boy genius," but opponents have preferred the Texas title "turd blossom."
Rove says he is leaving at the end of the month for family reasons, but there have been Democratic calls for his head ever since he was investigated over the naming of an undercover CIA operative whose husband was a leading opponent of the Iraq war.
While Vice President Dick Cheney's top adviser, Lewis Libby, was found guilty in court for lying over the leak, a special prosecutor decided there was no case against Rove who lived to fight a new political battle.
Congress is also demanding Rove's testimony over a row over the firing of federal prosecutors who critics say were sacked for political gain.
Rove helped Bush through Texas politics, the state governorship and to the ultimate prize -- the White House.
He used county by county mastery of the US political map to earn Bush his victory over Democrat Al Gore in 1999 and to return him to the White House ahead of John Kerry in 2004.
PHISHING: The con might appear convincing, as the scam e-mails can coincide with genuine messages from Apple saying you have run out of storage For a while you have been getting messages from Apple saying “your iCloud storage is full.” They say you have exceeded your storage plan, so documents are no longer being backed up, and photos you take are not being uploaded. You have been resisting Apple’s efforts to get you to pay a minimum of ￡0.99 (US$1.33) a month for more storage, but it seems that you cannot keep putting off the inevitable: You have received an e-mail which says your iCloud account has been blocked, and your photos and videos would be deleted very soon. To keep them you need
The Israeli military has demolished entire villages as part of its invasion of south Lebanon, rigging homes with explosives and razing them to the ground in massive remote detonations. The Guardian reviewed three videos posted by the Israeli military and on social media, which showed Israel carrying out mass detonations in the villages of Taybeh, Naqoura and Deir Seryan along the Israel-Lebanon border. Lebanese media has reported more mass detonations in other border villages, but satellite imagery was not readily available to verify these claims. The demolitions came after Israeli Minister of Defense Israel Katz called for the destruction of
A US YouTuber who caused outrage for filming himself kissing a statue commemorating Korean wartime sex slaves has been sentenced to six months in prison, a court in Seoul said yesterday. Johnny Somali, 25, gained notoriety several years ago for recording himself doing a series of provocative stunts in South Korea and Japan, and streaming them on platforms such as YouTube and Twitch. South Korean authorities indicted Somali — whose real name is Ramsey Khalid Ismael — in 2024 on public order violations and obstruction of business, and banned him from leaving the country. “The court has sentenced him to six months in
The death toll from a shooting in western Afghanistan rose to 11 on Saturday, after gunmen targeted civilians at a picnic spot in Herat, the provincial authority said. Bullet marks were visible on a wall of the Sayed Mohammad Agha Shia shrine, while bloodstains marked a blanket abandoned at the scene. “Eleven people have been recorded dead and eight others wounded from Friday’s incident, with the condition of two of the wounded reported as critical,” Herat’s information office said in a statement. The update raises a toll of seven killed provided on Friday by the Afghan Ministry of Interior Affairs
RSS