Karl Rove divorces after 24 years of marriage

[Nagishkaw 510]

Karl Rove, the political mastermind for former President George W. Bush, and his wife, Darby, have divorced after 24 years of marriage.

A family spokeswoman, the former White House press secretary Dana Perino, said in a statement: “Karl Rove and his wife, Darby, were granted a divorce last week. The couple came to the decision mutually and amicably, and they maintain a close relationship and a strong friendship. There will be no further comment, and the family requests that its privacy be respected.” The news was first reported Tuesday morning by Politico.

In his long political career Mr. Rove has been known as a complicated and enigmatic figure, even to some of his close allies.

Darby Rove was well-known in Bush circles for understanding her husband like few others, providing him ballast that was captured in a May 2000 profile about Mr. Rove in The New York Times Magazine by the former Times Washington correspondent Melinda Henneberger:

Darby Rove is a graphic artist who worked for her husband’s political direct-mail business before they were married, and over a long lunch earlier this spring she was both admiring and bracingly frank about him. She called him a creative genius and a committed father to their 11-year-old son, Andrew, but also said he can be fierce and quite intimidating, even when he’s trying not to be.

“He’s learned to lay back a little bit when he and Andrew play chess,” she told me, “but even in croquet he’d be hitting my ball so far I was crying on vacation.” It isn’t only that he’s always working, she said, but that working for Republicans is the organizing principle of his life, at the center of his world, which he tends to divide into friends and foes. “I told Karl the other day,” she said, ” ‘You see things in black and white. I see lots of gray’.”

When Mr. Rove resigned from his senior position at the White House in 2007, he said he owed it to his family to return it to a sense of normalcy that was impossible to maintain in his high-pressure, high-profile job. A friend, who spoke about the Roves only on condition of anonymity out of respect for their privacy, said the couple maintained an amicable relationship but the rigors and challenges of Mr. Rove’s time at the White House had clearly taken their toll.

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12...-have-divorced/

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

I dislike it when this sort of thing pops up in the news - it's a private matter of the Rove family.

[Peikko 1,575]

I don't think this was reported inappropriately. A divorce is a material fact although to me personally, his marital status is of no interest whatsoever. What I dislike is when the media obsesses on supposedly salacious details in such matters. The details should be a private matters between the parties involved.

[NickD 202]

Karl Rove was a protege of Lee Atwater, both hypocritical misuser's of high Christian moral values to distort their criminal activities to gain power in the Republican Party loaded with lies and distortions. Obviously, Rove himself wrote that piece about his divorce. And if he does have high pressure in his job, it is fear of getting caught. He can get caught now, but Obama is very much a part of this cover up.

Totally disgusted as to how corrupt our political system has become.