Karl Rove's New Job: Gravedigger

Karl Rove finally joins the growing list of Bush staffers to unexpectedly leave the White House. His stated reason for leaving is that he wishes to spend more time with his family. This possibility is too mundane, banal, and cliché for someone of Rove's character.

More cynical people believe that Karl Rove is retreating from the current Congressional hearings regarding the firing of US attorneys, the Valerie Plame scandal, and other charges. Bush can therefore avoid a constitutional showdown with Congress about executive privilege, and if Rove is found guilty of any wrongdoing Bush may pardon Rove, as he did with Libby. This possibility is too far-fetched, even for the Bush administration.

The optimistic believe that Rove is retiring from political life because of his massive failure with the 2006 Congressional election. Rove had stated that the GOP would retain majorities in both houses of Congress, and he was the architect behind many of the failed Republican reelection campaigns. This possibility is unlikely because it would mean that Rove would be admitting his own fallibility.

The skeptical believe that Rove will reenter politics for the 2008 election, helping either the Republican presidential candidate or trying to swing Congress back to the GOP by focusing on a variation of his leaked 2008 targeted districts (A list that confirms much of DAPAC's own independent research on our 2008 targeted districts). This possibility is also unlikely because of Rove's humiliation in the 2006 election.

Many predict Rove is leaving to write his memoirs, casting himself as a favorable force in American politics amidst recent controversy. Rove has always been a student of American history and cares deeply about both his and President Bush's lasting place in American politics: their legacies. He will, no doubt, want to reshape their standings in posterity against the constant bashing they are receiving, and extraordinarily low approval ratings. However, his efforts will not be aimed at changing current public opinion but will be targeted at the future, when historians sort out what the Bush presidency's lasting effects were. This possibility for Rove's future is the most probable outcome.

My suggestion is that Karl Rove recruit former Attorney General Donald Rumsfeld and both of them should become gravediggers at American soldiers' funerals in order to come face to face with what their legacies meant to thousands of American families. This possibility would only happen if people were truly held accountable for their actions and forced to confront the consequences, or in other words, it's not going to happen.