Turd Blossom is leaving.

Karl Rove, who masterminded President George W. Bush's two White House victories but was slammed by opponents as a divisive figure in U.S. politics, said on Monday he was resigning and heading home to Texas.
The political strategist, known as "The Architect" for guiding Bush from the Texas governorship to the presidency, but also known as "Bush's brain", which makes me think he must have left years ago, is the latest aide to quit as the clock ticks down on Bush's second term.
"This closes the chapter where George Bush and Karl Rove thought they were building a new Republican majority that would last a generation. That is clearly off the table," said Cal Jillson, a political analyst at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.
Bush himself reportedly has another nickname for his pal: "Turd Blossom".

Rove helped create a climate of bitter divisiveness and remains under suspicion for his role in administration scandals.
A special prosecutor investigated him on allegations of leaking covert CIA officer Valerie Plame's identity in a scandal linked to the Iraq war, but he was never charged and Bush gave him unbending support.
Democrats in Congress have also had Rove in their sights as they look into why nine U.S. prosecutors were fired. The Senate Judiciary Committee subpoenaed him over the issue, but Bush cited executive privilege to reject it. Patrick Leahy, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has been trying to force Rove to testify before the committee about Rove's role in the firings of eight United States attorneys.
"Mr. Rove's apparent attempts to manipulate elections and push out prosecutors citing bogus claims of voter fraud shows corruption of federal law enforcement for partisan political purposes, and the Senate Judiciary Committee will continue its investigation into this serious issue," Leahy said.

Rove's political legacy is a binge of hate-filled niche campaigning, polarization and short-term expediency. If you're interested in learning more about some of the really nasty tactics Rove used, I highly recommend the movie "Bush's brain".

Just a few examples of rove's "tactics":
In 1986 Rove ran the texas gubernatorial campaign of , just before a crucial debate, Rove claimed that his office had been bugged by Democrats. The police and FBI investigated and discovered that the bug's battery was so small that it needed to be changed every few hours, and the investigation was dropped. It is widely suspected Rove had bugged his own office to garner sympathy votes in the close governor's race.
In 1994 Rove ran the Alabama Supreme Court race of Harold See, who was running against Mark Kennedy, an incumbent Democratic justice. A former Rove staffer reported that "some" within the See camp initiated a whisper campaign that Kennedy was a pedophile. Kennedy won by less than one percentage point.
In 1993, Rove was the adviser of George W. Bush in his successful campaign to become governor of Texas. In this campaign he used push-polling, a tactic Rove is well known for. Rove has been accused of using supposed pollsters to call voters to ask such things as whether people would be "more or less likely to vote for Governor Richards if [they] knew her staff is dominated by lesbians."
During the bitterly-contested 2000 Republican primary, allegations were made that Rove was responsible for a South Carolina push poll that used racist innuendo intended to undermine the support of Bush rival John McCain: "Would you be more likely or less likely to vote for John McCain for president if you knew he had fathered an illegitimate black child?"
Rove has played a significant role in shaping policy at the White House. One oft-cited example is that terror warnings were regularly made at times when John Kerry's ratings rose during the 2004 presidential election.
On August 29, 2003, retired ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV claimed that Rove leaked the identity of Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, as a CIA employee, in retaliation for Wilson's op-ed in The New York Times in which he criticized the Bush administration's push for the war in Iraq.

Politics is a dirty business, but Karl Rove dragged it into the septic tank. It will be up to the new (and no doubt Democratic) administration to start cleaning up from January 2009 on.
Rove leaves behind an everlasting stain in the underwear of politics. Turd blossom indeed.