Rove's Dismal Legacy

To complicate things further, Rove's political goals were sometimes contradictory. He was intellectually devoted to broadening the party's base in order to create a permanent majority. But he was not afraid to use bare-knuckled tactics to play to a narrow but devoted slice of that base.

The Rove-inspired push to partially privatize Social Security was his most ambitious and disastrous attempt to achieve a political realignment. The theory was that creating an "ownership society" would inevitably turn more people into Republicans. But to pass it required Democratic support. It got none.

And an immigration proposal that may well have brought more Hispanics to the Republican Party ran aground on the very sort of right-wing talk-radio nativism that Rove sometimes depended on in his campaign to vilify everything liberal.

Rove's Next Job?

At his brief and emotional joint appearance with Bush this morning, Rove spoke somewhat elliptically about his future: "I look forward to continuing our friendship of 34 years, to being your fierce and committed advocate on the outside, and to the next journey we might make together."

My hunch: Rove will take a lead role in running Bush's presidential library. As Michael Abramowitz wrote in The Washington Post in March, Rove has already started spending a lot of his intellectual energy "trying to put his own distinctive spin on current events and the longer historical view."

Rove's signature political move is that, faced with a challenging political situation, he never plays defense. He attacks the problem head on and tries to co-opt the opposition's position. He does this even when it appears counterintuitive -- case in point, attacking John Kerry on his military record.

What could be more challenging today than spinning the Bush legacy? I fully expect Rove to start taking on Bush's critics with vigor and venom.

What About Cheney?

Rove and Cheney have been Bush's two most intimate and important advisers, more or less splitting the presidential portfolio -- with Cheney taking lead on foreign policy, intelligence and energy and Rove taking the lead on most everything else.

Rove's departure can't help but increase Cheney's clout at the White House. In fact -- who knows? -- Cheney may even have engineered it.

To me, one of the great White House mysteries has been how Rove and Cheney get along.

You may recall that at the obstruction of justice trial of former vice presidential aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the defense argued that Libby and Cheney at one point believed that some of Bush's top aides were trying to "scapegoat" Libby, rather than let top Bush political strategist Karl Rove take the fall.

So it's possible they don't get along at all.