Aren't you nearly nauseous about this "spending more time with my family" reason for leaving public office? Were these guys oblivious to their families before? Isn't theirs the family values party? Karl Rove's son is at college. At that age they usually want you to keep a distance. Yet, according to Rove he'd stay at the White House but "I've got to leave for the sake of my family."
It's insulting, really. And unfair to people who really do need to leave a job they love to "be there" for their families. It's gratuitous.
Then there's the implication that he might have stayed but Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten advised senior aides that after Labor Day they'd be obliged to remain until George Bush leaves office. That's iron clad like the rule about wearing white after Labor Day. Where did that come from? For years I wondered what awful thing would happen if that rule were broken. Stuck in social hell no doubt, ignored by all who'd taken note of such an important style date. Apparently after Labor Day you're in or you're out at The White House no matter how much of a big shot you are.
You get the impression that Karl Rove, long-term friend and confidant of the president, the "architect" of his acquisition of the White House was mulling about in a room with a lot of aides, expecting to continue in his job, when Bolten unexpectedly walked in and lowered the boom. Karl Rove, shocked and dismayed, nervously paced about as "My God! Do I leave or don't I?" tumbled mercilessly about in his traumatized brain. "Was this an indirect message from the president cutting me loose?" He must have broken out in a cold sweat. His time had come without even a discussion with the Commander-in-Chief. Sure, that all happened!
The fictions never end. They have to think we're stupid. That's the only explanation. I'm with Doris Kearns Goodwin. Let's look long and hard at the history of current presidential candidates and find ourselves an honest one - someone who gives us some credit for intelligence.
I hope Lewis Black does a Daily Show segment on Rove's traumatic, supposedly blind-sided departure. It'd be hysterically disparaging. Exactly what Rove and this duplicitous White House deserve.
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