Karl Rove - direct link from Watergate to Shrub.

More about Karl Rove. Rick Perlstein describes Rove's early political history during the Nixon administration. He also relays rumors that Rove may be slated to become Fred Thompson's campaign manager in Thompson's Presidential run. Go read it. It's short.

Then consider this story from Kevin Drum.

Josh Green's fortuitously timed Karl Rove profile in this month's Atlantic contains this mysterious anecdote:

Hurricane Katrina clearly changed the public perception of Bush's presidency. Less examined is the role Rove played in the defining moment of the administration's response: when Air Force One flew over Louisiana and Bush gazed down from on high at the wreckage without ordering his plane down. Bush advisers Matthew Dowd and Dan Bartlett wanted the president on the ground immediately, one Bush official told me, but were overruled by Rove for reasons that are still unclear: "Karl did not want the plane to land in Louisiana." Rove's political acumen seemed to be deserting him altogether.

I suspect the answer here is that Rove never truly had a lot of political acumen. He had campaign acumen. He was good at winning elections, but not at much else.
[Emphasis mine - Editor WTF-o]

I'd really agree with that last line. "...good at winning elections, but not at much else." Someone in the Republican Party needs that kind of expertise right now, and rattlesnakes don't retire. They just move from one hole to another looking for more comfort and better prey. Rove is leaving one hole, and he will be searching for another.

Rove working for a Republican candidate for President would certainly explain the timing of his departure from the White House. Besides the fact that it is clearly on his own terms (his ego demands that) it would be difficult for him to work on Thompson's campaign from the White House, and Fred needs him now. Fred has already gone through one campaign manager and the replacements are described as "temporary." The Republican caucuses and primaries start in January 2008, so Fred has only about four months to announce and become a serious candidate.

Considering the lackluster performance of all of the currently announced candidates ("None of the Above" is still leading) Thompson has an excellent opportunity to win the nomination if he gets a well-managed campaign.

Rove could not run such a campaign from the White House, and time is short. So Rove needs to act soon if he is going to. Nixon is known to have said that Thompson is "Not very smart, but friendly." That makes him Rove's type of candidate.

Since Thompson is scheduled to announce his candidacy in September, we should know soon.

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For an interesting set of views go see Digby. She has assembled some of the less hagiographic and more accurate reports on Republican saint Rove that have been recently published. Andrew Sullivan is particularly scathing.