Lower Manhattanite has an alternate view of Mr Rove’s departure.

The clunkiness, mixed-messages for leaving, and odd sudden-ness leads me to believe that while Rove may have had leaving in mind as an idea, forces with more ooomph than him, most certainly handed him the golden parachute, while also giving him a base-of-the-palm "nudge" out of the plane. If you trot out the euphemistic "I want to spend more time with my family.”, and then, just as quickly switch to "There was a Labor Day 'go now—or ride it out' deadline.”, all while the party is openly seething at your fealty to one man, while costing it Congressional control, and even seeing a state the GOP controlled as recently as last November have it's Republican party nearly broke , well...it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that maybe—just maybe some pissed-off people of influence pushed your wattled ass on out.

I see the long-ignored, Old School “Dons” like James Baker's hands all over this thing. That embarrassment of the Maryland GOP—where if you think about it, many GOP Beltway insiders actually live—being Samuel L. Jackson-in-“Jungle Fever”-broke, 16 months out of a huge election season is a borderline killing offense for a party supposedly fighting its way back to relevance. And Rove—lightning rod, nexus of hate and Bush fatigue, and reverse fund-raising tool for a super-majority crazed Democratic party out to put a boot on the GOP's neck come the next cycle, is as toxic for Republican candidates as his patron is.

With the numerous investigations swirling about, sooner or later—in spite of the draconian levels of cover-up/record destruction/hiding behind privilege—one of those boils was gonna pop. At some point, after a long period of things going one way exclusively, you will get a “Sox in '04” moment. So, with Rove's being at the nexus of almost all of the probes, the best thing to do was to cut bait, lest that “Sox in '04” moment take the whole party down—because of their knee-jerk need to defend the President, the party's standard-bearer for the last six years. A helluva sacrifice when you think about it—because his ability to “rat-fuck” electorally from the White House is much more devastating from within than what it is from without. Executive Privilege is one bomb-ass perk—especially when you have use every exploitable element of the government at your fingertips.

The problem with this theory is that while he might have been pushed out the door to keep blood off the front door, executive privilege (technically) doesn’t obtain to ex-employees of the WH, despite the protestations of Sara M Taylor. One shouldn’t infer from Congress’ not slamming her into the middle of next week that Mr Rove would get the same gentle handling if he put forward the same defense if he was subpoenaed - and he will be subpoenaed. There are just too many different garbage piles with his name on an envelope at the bottom.

Meanwhile, the race is on to see just where the Party of Crime eventually finds its level. It’s just possible there could be a serious upset in 2008, despite Congress’ eager fellating of all of Mr Bu$h dictatorial dreams. We’ll know more in two or three months, after they decide whether they have to attack Iran to keep a lid on things inside the US.

To an extent it will depend on how hard Congress laughs at the “independent report” of GEN Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker that the White House is writing for them to sign.

Bring the cannolis.