He said he decided to leave after White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten told senior aides that if they stayed past Labor Day they would be obliged to remain through the end of the president’s term in January 2009.
So, Rove is resigning rather than sticking it out for the last sixteen months or so. Maybe he wants to go work for another campaign. Maybe he’s about to get indicted for something really nasty and was told to distance himself. The above article says it’s very common for top aides to get burned out and leave before the eight years is up, but I would have thought he’d have gotten out before now if he was going to. Although I suppose sixteen months is a long time.
Anyway, it can’t be good for the White House if he’s leaving. It can be neither good nor bad, but I can’t think of a scenario where this is good news.
I hope the next time he’s in the news is when he announces his retirement from politics to pursue his true calling – pulling the wings off of flies.