{"id":1064,"date":"2007-08-20T00:36:24","date_gmt":"2007-08-20T00:36:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/politics\/bush-rocked-as-another-key-aide-resigns\/1064\/"},"modified":"2007-08-20T00:36:24","modified_gmt":"2007-08-20T00:36:24","slug":"bush-rocked-as-another-key-aide-resigns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/politics\/bush-rocked-as-another-key-aide-resigns\/","title":{"rendered":"Bush rocked as another key aide resigns"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Sarah Baxter<\/a> <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>THE White House press secretary Tony Snow has announced that he will be leaving his job before the end of President George W Bush\u2019s term in office \u201cfor financial reasons\u201d.<\/p>\n

Snow, 52, has three children and is suffering from colon cancer. He earns $168,000 (about \u00a384,000) a year and took a large pay cut from his position as a talk show host to become Bush\u2019s most articulate defender.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m going to stay as long as I can,\u201d he said. News of his impending departure surprised White House colleagues and will further the impression of a lame duck president, who is limping to the end of his term in 2008.<\/p>\n

Karl Rove, hailed as the \u201carchitect\u201d of George W Bush\u2019s two election victories, announced his resignation as a White House aide last week. One senior Republican strategist said: \u201cRepublicans in Congress were ready to mutiny if he hadn\u2019t left. They have had enough of the politics of division.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Snow\u2019s departure will add to gloom surrounding the Republicans, who feel Bush is inadequately defending his policies. Even Snow said the president\u2019s domestic policy was \u201clistless\u201d before he went to work for him in April 2006.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will not be able to make it to the end of this administration, just financially,\u201d Snow said. \u201cThis job has been such a pleasant surprise in how much I like it. I love it.\u201d He had his last scheduled chemotherapy treatment on Friday and will have a CT scan on Monday.<\/p>\n

Despite Snow\u2019s best efforts at presentation, a Gallup poll on Friday revealed that only 29% of voters currently identify themselves as Republicans, compared with 37% as independents and 33% as Democrats. A majority, 56%, said they had an unfavourable view of the Republican party, its worst rating for 15 years.<\/p>\n

It was a shattering verdict on Rove\u2019s attempt to build a lasting Republican majority. The master electoral tactician, known as \u201cBush\u2019s brain\u201d, was lionised by conservatives until the Republicans lost control of Congress in the 2006 midterm elections.<\/p>\n

Rove\u2019s role will be partly filled by Ed Gillespie, a former lobbyist and chairman of the Republican national committee, who is already serving as counsellor to Bush in the White House.<\/p>\n

Rove\u2019s gifts for probing his enemy\u2019s weaknesses were in evidence last week when gave a farewell interview to Rush Limbaugh, the arch-conservative radio talk show host, and laid into Hillary Clinton as a \u201cfatally flawed\u201d candidate.<\/p>\n

Limbaugh told him he had a bunch of e-mails from listeners \u201cwho wanted me to pass on to you that they love you\u201d.<\/p>\n