(2005-10-21) — Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove today said that if a grand jury indicts him on charges related to the disclosure of Valerie Wilson’s CIA role, forcing him to resign, Mr. Rove will still help President George Bush to think.

The long-time Bush friend and strategist said he would continue, on a strictly volunteer basis, to aide the president in making decisions even if he has to do it “through letters or brief prison visits.”

“The people elected us President of the United States,” said Mr. Rove, “and even without my presence in the White House, George Bush is still technically America’s chief executive. As an ordinary citizen, I’ll volunteer to help my country where I can.”

In the waning days of the grand jury, as special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald mulls whether to bring criminal charges, Mr. Rove said he spends every waking hour mapping strategy for the final three years of the Bush presidency, “just in case I’m ever held incommunicado and he has to do this all by himself.”

When Mr. Rove completes the project, he said Mr. Bush will have a deck of laminated index cards, arranged by subject, that will tell him in plain language what to do in any situation-from how to pick a replacement for Mr. Rove, to how to respond to Iranian nuclear weapons deployment, to which fork to use for salad at a White House dinner.

“Our friends and our enemies need to know,” he said, “that even when Karl Rove is in exile, George Bush still has access to one of the greatest minds that ever occupied the Oval Office. I may not be there actually whispering in his ear anymore, but as long as the president has my talking points, he’s still the George Bush everyone knows and loves.”

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