Rove was hiding a stark hypocrisy in his family, too. On the eve of Karl’s eighteenth birthday, his father, Lou Rove, home for Christmas, announced he was leaving and would seek a divorce. Lou was actually Karl’s stepfather but had raised him from an early age, and he had no relationship with his biological dad. Lou, an oil company geologist, had decided he had reached the point where he wanted to live openly as a gay man. Karl’s mother, eventually, committed suicide, though he never acknowledged any linkage to that act and the trauma of the failed marriage and Lou’s shocking announcement regarding his true sexual orientation. Estranged from Lou, Karl eventually reconciled with the man who had raised him and made annual visits with his dad in Palm Springs, California, often taking road trips together to Santa Fe. The politics Karl was pursuing regarding gay marriage that fall with the Bush campaign had the potential to complicate Lou Rove’s life, or any partner of his. But, hey, “It’s just politics, Jimmy.” The contradiction probably did not ever register with Karl’s diminutive conscience.