Karl Rove has announced in an interview with the Wall Street Journal that he will step down as adviser to the president on August 31. The reason he gave is “to spend more time with his family,” the classic euphemism nearly always given when the person resigning is being forced out or leaving for reasons that cannot be discussed. Rove’s exit comes after the scandal over his role in the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame and more recently, the tumultuous Congressional hearings over his role in the firing of US prosecutors for political reasons.

Karl Rove has been known as “Bush’s Brain” and the architect of the Bush presidency, but he has been a political activist since the age 0f 9 when, as rumor has it, a little girl who supported Kennedy in the 1960 elections beat him up and he decided to support Nixon in revenge. In high school he began the famous Rovian tactics of smear tactics that put him and George W. Bush in the white house not just once, but twice.

Karl Rove’s birth chart shows us that he is a deeply insecure man, with Saturn in Libra in square (90 degrees) to his Sun. Saturn in Libra often describes an individual who feels a great deal of self-doubt (Saturn) in relationships with others (Libra), and with Saturn square his Sun (his sense of Self), he has a deep-rooted sense of inadequacy and shyness. This square is part of a larger formation that also includes Uranus, the revolutionary, opposing his Sun in Capricorn. Rove has three planets in Capricorn including Sun, Venus and Mercury. Capricorn people are heavily responsible and driven to accomplish something great. Uranus opposes Rove’s Sun, making him a bit of a maverick since Uranus rules revolution and destruction of the status quo.

Rove said that he first floated the idea of leaving the administration a year ago, just as his Sun progressed into Pisces. The progressed Sun changes signs only every 30 years, and this event generally marks a major shift in our approach to life. Pisces wants to draw us into the deeper aspects of our life, and perhaps Rove was feeling the call to a deeper experience.

Since Bush has been in office Rove has weathered transits of Saturn and Chiron over his Capricorn stellium. More recently, transiting Pluto has been square to Chiron in Rove’s chart and the Saturn/Neptune opposition was conjunct his Pluto. This has been a time for change and a readjustment of priorities for many of us born in the early 1950s with the effect of Saturn passing over those Leo Plutos but also the opposition of Neptune in Aquarius to those Plutos. As a true Capricorn, Rove hung in there while he was going through these difficult cycles.

Now these difficult cycles are behind him and the planets are smiling on Rove now. Let’s just hope that the planets will be smiling on the US as the country attempts to recover from the Rove Effect.