Amidst all the analysis of Rove's legacy, a few writers have remembered how Karl Rove manipulated American Christianity.

And at Street Prophets, the Rev. Deb Haffner riffs on his reason, that he's "leaving for family." She writes:

You know, that Karl Rove resigned yesterday to spend more time with his family...of course. Not because of continuing controversies around Valerie Plame, the dismissed US attorneys, the plummeting esteem of the administration, and so on, but because after 35 years working for Mr. Bush, he realized he had neglected his family and it was time to come home. Oh, and that he had to make up his mind by Labor Day. For resigning members of the Bush administration, family is like the "dog ate my homework" excuse.

Matthew Yglesias notes the Atlantic Monthly's, Joshua Green shows off his long-form skillz on how Rove wasn't that smart after all, just willing to wangle the religious more than most in his party.

Salon's Lou Dubose (h/t Dan) writes:

The "guns, God, and gays" campaigns that defined Texas politics and the politics of the South became the model for Republican Party campaigns across the country. It was Rove who was responsible for the whispering campaign that characterized Democratic Gov. Ann Richards, Bush's opponent in the 1994 governor's race, as a closet lesbian, in a successful attempt to peel away conservative Christian votes in East Texas.

Perhaps the most recent example of a successful social-issues campaign was in Ohio during the 2004 election, which provided critical electoral votes to secure George Bush's second term. With Bush in peril of losing to John Kerry, the Republican National Committee looked to David Barton to go into Ohio and turn out the base. Barton is a former vice chairman of the Texas Republican Party and one of the founders of the WallBuilders, a Christian advocacy group working to restore God to His central position in American history, and in the history and social studies curricula of the nation's public schools.