Apr 24, 2002 4 min read

WASHINGTON (AP) – Karen Hughes, the fierce protector of President Bush’s image and perhaps the most powerful woman ever to serve as White House adviser, resigned Tuesday to go home to Texas with her family. “I guess we’re a little homesick,” she said in a surprise announcement.

With the first high-profile resignation of his presidency, Bush lost the everyday presence of a virtually irreplaceable aide who helped him launch his political career as Texas governor in 1994. The president said he will seek Hughes’ input as an unofficial adviser in Texas, and won’t replace her as White House counselor when she leaves this summer.

“She may be changing addresses, but she’s not leaving my inner circle,” Bush said in an interview with The Associated Press.

The departure of Hughes, 45, could dramatically change life at the White House.

Under orders to attend every White House meeting in which major decisions are made, Hughes reviews and often rewrites every statement Bush makes. She travels with him to make sure pictures of his road trips match the message. She manages more than 40 aides who staff the communications, press secretary, speechwriting and media affairs offices. She confronts reporters and harangues White House surrogates who step outside the administration’s line. She maintains an iron grip on information, an enforcer against leaks.

She spends more time with Bush than any other aide, even senior adviser Karl Rove – taking walks on the White House grounds and chatting over coffee – and is known for having a sense of his moods and thinking.

Rove’s influence is likely to increase once Hughes leaves. The two have gotten along well but have not been shy about giving Bush conflicting advice. The president views debate among his top aides as a way to balance their influence with him, associates say.

Also likely to benefit from the move: Communications Director Dan Bartlett who, at just 30, has worked for Bush even longer than Hughes and will assume more duties.

“My husband and I have made a difficult but we think right decision to move our family home back to Texas,” Hughes said in the White House press room. “Our roots are there.”

Senior White House advisers and Hughes associates outside the administration said her son, Robert, 15, was eager to return home. Her husband, lawyer Jerry, was unhappy with Washington and regretted the loss of privacy and lack of time with his wife.

Strong-willed and powerful, Hughes had told Bush she would not come to Washington unless she could adjust her schedule to be with her family. And at the White House, she left her corner office early at least once a week to get home.

Presidential historians said Hughes’ influence was unprecedented for a woman – except for a handful of first ladies and perhaps Bush’s own national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice.

“It speaks volumes about the extent to which women have grown in public life and illustrates why, as a presidential historian, I predict we will see a woman as the president of the United States in the next eight or 12 years,” said Robert Dallek of Boston University.

Bush said Hughes broke the news to him in an Oval Office meeting last week.

“I said, “Karen, I’ve always valued your advice’ and she said, ‘You’ll have my advice.’ So I said to myself as long as I have her advice, judgment and friendship, I support the move. That’s what’s going to happen. She will continue to give advice,” Bush said.

Fifteen months into the Bush presidency, this is the period in which senior aides generally start considering departures from high-pressure administration posts. Bush advisers say they expect Hughes will not be the last senior aide to leave this year.

However, chief of staff Andrew Card, who has denied rumors that he is leaving, is less likely to depart anytime soon now that Hughes is leaving, associates said.

In the interview, Bush said there was nothing other than Hughes’ personal desire to return to Texas that prompted her resignation.

“This is Karen being Karen,” he said. “She loves her family.”

Dallek said, “I would think Bush needs her and relies on her and Karl Rove quite badly.”

Republican operatives, already concerned about Bush’s performance during the Middle East crisis, privately fretted about the impact Hughes’ resignation will have.

Hughes, who has a stepdaughter, Leigh, 28, and a granddaughter, Lauren, 6, in Austin, said she plans to advise the White House from Texas on big-picture communication strategies and speeches.

White House aides say the Republican National Committee could pay her to advise Bush from Texas.