Exit Karl Rove, Bush's 'architect'
Updated on 13 August 2007
White House aid and chief Bush strategist says "it's time" to step down.
Nicknamed 'the architect' for campaigning skills that saw George W Bush win presidential terms in 2000 and 2004, Karl Rove today announced that he was stepping down as White House deputy chief of staff.
He will depart at the end of the month.
It is understood that Rove made his decision after the White House chief of staff, Joshua Bolten, told staff that unless they went by September this year they would be obliged to see out the remaining 17 months of Bush's final term.
'There's always something that can keep you here and, as much as I'd like to be here, I've got to do this for the sake of my family.'Karl Rove
"I just think it's time," Rove told the Wall Street Journal. "There's always something that can keep you here and, as much as I'd like to be here, I've got to do this for the sake of my family."
Rove had become an increasingly controversial figure. He was investigated after the exposure of CIA agent Valerie Plame and last month the US Senate issued a subpoena against him in a probe over fired federal prosecutors.
Rove first worked with Bush in the early 1990s and helped him to win the race to become governor of Texas in 1993.
The White House described Rove's imminent departure as a "big loss".
George Bush calls him his "boy genius", Democrats call him all sorts of things. But today he said: "I'm a myth. There's the Mark of Rove, I read about some of the things I'm supposed to have done, and I have to try not to laugh."
