Karl Rove to resign at end of August

LSB: It's about time! Why wait until the end of August - leave now and take Gonzalez with you! Oh, and don't let the door hit your fat ass on the way out!

Of course, the problem now is that without his brain the only one Bush trusts is Cheney. God help us!

How will history record Karl Rove's legacy?

SeattleLiberal: There is zero doubt that Karl Rove is ruthless, maniacal, manipulative, devious, dastardly, and Machiavellian by his very nature. In addition, Rove is smart, opportunistic, and exploitive. GWBush personally may have been well served with Rove at his side since 1992, but this great country was not at all well served by Karl Rove. May Karl Rove rot in hell along side his Swift Boat Vet buddies.

kappy: Let's face it, King Karl is bailing on 43 because his reputation as the architect is being tarnished. Better to get out now and make some serious cash from his book deal. Plus, no more investigations. Don't worry about the legal bills - a Rove defense fund is just around the corner. You can bank on that. I find it amusing that Rove predicts that 43 will regain his popularity. If so, why doesn't Rove stick around and execute "Operation Rescue"? Because there is no plan.

milkman57: This guy will be remembered for taking a dimwitted preppie and making him a governor, then a two term President. Mostly on the backs of gays with the help of the so-called Christian right. This will not be known as a great time in American history. Kind of an 8 year Watergate. Rove and his cronies raped and pillaged America and the world while the Congress/press observed. Rove is leaving because he's become increasingly irrelevant within the administration. The sad thing is that there will always be a job for a nasty slimeball like him. Probably with his kind on FOX or with Limpballs on the radio.

Joe Sudbay, BlogAmerica.com: Have to give Rove credit for one thing: he knew the press corps were a bunch of patsies and he played them over and over and over.

Finally, from Steve Benen at theCarpetBaggerReport.com:

Rove’s legacy has nothing to do with his so-called strategic brilliance. His significance has everything to do with his cutthroat, win-at-all-cost style. Rove believes the political rule that there are no rules. Laws are meant to be broken. Scandals are meant to be covered up. Enemies are meant to be destroyed. The key to electoral success is to tear the country in half and see who comes out with the bigger chunk.

Moreover, Rove helped usher in an unprecedented approach to executive-branch governing — one in which the line between policy and politics no longer exists. Every agency, every official, every decision was a political opportunity to be exploited, laws and ethics be damned.

When history looks back at the disgrace of the Bush presidency, the one celebrated quote that will help capture much of what went wrong will be John DiIulio’s. It was DiIulio, the first director of the president’s White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, who told Ron Suskind, “What you’ve got is everything — and I mean everything — being run by the political arm. It’s the reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis.”

This was Rove’s idea, and it was Rove’s job to execute the strategy. He’ll be leaving the White House in a few weeks, but his place in history is secure. That’s not a compliment.