Here are a few stories from the last 24 hours;

News bit number one, and probably the story you haven’t heard from Over the pond;

As predicted former Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson has ended his bid to become the Republican nominee for president of the USA. The announcement, made earlier today, came after a poor showing in Sundays Iowa straw poll, where he finished 6th. realistically he was never going to achieve his aim, of coming higher than 2nd in the poll, as his campaign has been weak, compared with the others, for a long long time.

The other big story, and hopefully the one you have heard today, is that one of president bush's most senior advisors, and closest friends is to stand down from his post at the white house, at the end of the month. Karl Rove, nicknamed "the architect" by the president has said he wants to spend more time with the family (because that excuse never gets old). now that may well be true, for at least a time, but i personally think that he is standing down now so he can go off and find someone to join the race for president, perhaps a well known actor who is yet to announce, or perhaps someone completely different, whom he can mould into Bush mark 3 (only time will tell). But for now Mr. Rove will just have to stick to making fun out of the democrats candidates, starting with Senator Clinton whom he described as "a tough, tenacious, fatally flawed candidate"

Never-the-less Rove's departure is leaving president bush with few friends left in Washington, and that isn’t helped by a large part of the party distancing themselves from him, in attempts to get the party's nomination for president

KEY DEPARTURES
Karl Rove, chief political strategist, leaves 31 Aug
Donald Rumsfeld, defense secretary, quit after 2006 mid-term elections
Andrew Card, chief of staff, quit March 2006
Paul Wolfowitz, deputy defense secretary, quit March 2005 (for a job at the World Bank, which he later had to quit from)
Colin Powell, secretary of state, resigned after President Bush's first term, Nov 2004
Harriet Miers - former white house counsel, and nominee for the Supreme Court. (her nomination had to be withdrawn, as she was to liberal for the Republicans in congress and to conservative for the Democrats in congress, she later resigned form the white house after massive pressure had been put on her for over a year)
John Bolten - former United States Ambassador to the United Nations, who had to resign his post, as he wasn’t going to be given the job full time (President Bush named him as a recess appointment, meaning at some point he would need senate confirmation)

SURVIVORS FROM 2000
Dick Cheney, vice-president
Condoleezza Rice, secretary of state, was national security adviser in first term
Alberto Gonzales, attorney general, was White House counsel (But may not be there for much longer with growing pressure for him to resign over the firing of eight United States Attorneys, from the Department of justice, which he runs)

And one last thing, this weekend president bush made a joke about himself :) while waiting for President Sarkozy to arrive at his home in Maine, President Bush was talking to reporters, and one of them asked him "Can you speak any French sir?" The president’s response (a classic by most standards) was;
"I can barely speak English"