EON

Washington – Karl Rove, President George W Bush’s embattled, polarizing political guru and most trusted confidant, is calling it quits at a tough time for the man he has advised for three decades.

Rove, a conservative Republican who started with Bush in Texas state politics and became one of the most powerful US presidential aides in recent history, revealed in an emotional announcement Monday that he will leave his White House post on August 31.

His exit removes a prime target for Democrats as the 2008 presidential election campaign heats up and Republican candidates keep their distance from Bush, his popularity depressed by the Iraq war as he heads toward his last year in office.

“We worked together so we could be in a position to serve this country,” Bush said in a brief, tight-lipped tribute. “And so I thank my friend. I’ll be on the road behind you here in a little bit.”

Rove, 56, insisted he was leaving on his own terms, not bowing to pressure from critics or investigations into his White House role. He had discussed his departure with Bush since last summer, he said.

“It’s been an exhilarating and eventful time,” he said.

Rove said he wants to devote more time to his second wife and college-age son, write a book about the Bush years and teach politics at a university. He got a hug from Bush, a kiss from first lady Laura Bush and applause from staffers gathered on the White House lawn.

For Bush’s foes, Rove was a man they loved to loathe. Critics called him “Bush’s brain.”

A Republican political consultant who built a reputation as a direct-mail campaign wizard, Rove mobilised the religious right and other conservatives to get Bush elected president in 2000 and again in 2004.

After the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, Bush’s strategy of portraying Democratic opponents as weak on national security bore Rove’s hallmark.

More than anything, Rove is Bush’s ideological soulmate, the one he reportedly calls Sunday morning for straight talk about politics. He first advised Bush during the future president’s 1978 run to represent Texas in Congress.

Rove fans also point to his light side, on display when he danced and rapped at the annual White House correspondents’ dinner in March.

“He’s a fighter. He’s a cheerful fighter,” said Paul Gigot, a Wall Street Journal editor who interviewed Rove and broke the news of his departure in the newspaper’s Monday edition.

In 2004, Rove’s touch was key to getting out the Republican vote and winning re-election for Bush. The victory set the stage for Bush to appoint two conservative justices to the US Supreme Court, shifting the court’s balance to the right probably for years.

But Rove and the administration lost momentum. With the US public turning against the war in Iraq, Republicans lost control of Congress in 2006. Key elements of Bush’s domestic agenda, including an overhaul of immigration law, faltered amid Republican resistance.

Though not charged, Rove also was dogged by an investigation into the leak of a CIA operative’s name and congressional pressure to testify about the government’s firing of eight prosecutors in 2006 that Democrats say was politically motivated.