What is Karl Rove going to do now that he’s a retired man?

Well, after he cleaned off his car, some speculated he’d secretly help Barack Obama defeat Rove’s arch-nemesis Hillary Clinton. Turns out, however, that his decades long attraction to President Bush might just well prevent him from ever leaving his side. 

“Now retired from the White House, Rove is planning to take charge of the Bush library and museum, including the design, fundraising, and planning for what insiders are calling a copy of the conservative Hoover Institution at Stanford University,” according to U.S. News’ Paul Bedard.

He’ll apparently focus himself on “putting the president’s stamp” on the facility that’s expected to be aligned with Southern Methodist University.

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The New York Times may have scooped The Washington Post on the Alberto Gonzales resignation story by several minutes, but U.S. News’ Washington Whispers gossip columnist Paul Bedard had everyone beat by a whole day.

“The buzz among top Bushies is that beleaguered Attorney General Alberto Gonzales finally plans to depart and will be replaced by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff,” Bedard wrote yesterday. “Why Chertoff? Officials say he’s got fans on Capitol Hill, is untouched by the Justice prosecutor scandal, and has more experience than Gonzales did, having served as a federal judge and assistant attorney general.”

Nary a news outlet has given Bedard credit for his scoop, but he’s taking it in stride.

“Oh well, I used to get worked up about that stuff but not anymore,” Bedard told Big Head DC this morning. “I mean, it’s not like they stole my winning Powerball ticket. I kind of like that Washington Whispers is the tip sheet the bigs go to for ideas.”

CNN confirmed earlier this morning that Chertoff is a possible candidate for replacement.

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“Hey, why aren’t you on this list of big shot pressies offering their services to a charity?” the U.S. News gossip gangsta teased us via e-mail last night.

As we told him, we were forced to turn the offer down because we didn’t want to steal away any of Anne Schroeder’s luminous spotlight: 

A7. Lunch with Anne Schroeder: Shennanigans columnist for the Politico

Schroeder is the queen of Washington scoop! She is currently the Shennanigans columnist for the Politico and the former editor at Capitol File. She co-wrote the Reliable Source column with Lloyd Grove at the Washington Post.

Yes, kids, if you’re willing to fork over the big bucks on Saturday night, you can have a “power lunch” with this glam gossip gal. If you win, maybe you can ask her how she manages to write in so many different fonts on her blog over the course of one day. Or perhaps you could ask her why the people who are hosting the auction can’t correctly spell the name of her column. Or maybe you could quiz her on what she thinks about the sex life of Politico photo editor Patrick Ryan.

Then you can eat cake.

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The U.S. News-er does not appreciate WaPo’s Style musings on the Rest of Virginia (or RoVa) compared to oh-so-elite NoVa. (Examples of the Post’s “humor” from yesterday: “In NoVa, a lab is the family dog. In RoVa, a lab is the family meth business” and “In RoVa, they like freshly killed venison. In NoVa, they like Alfred, Lord Tennyson.”

Paul Bedard said on his blog yesterday that he’s proud to live on the West Virginia border as a “camo-wearing, gun-toting, deer-hunting, blackberry-growing, Cracker Barrel-loving” Washington, D.C. gossip columnist.

Oh, God, Paul, that sounds really bad now that we read it over. Rush & Malloy are so gonna start laughing at us.

Never mind. We agree with the Posties.

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We’ve grown so tired of gabbing on about male gossip columnists, including Lloyd Grove, Paul Bedard and the Examiner newbies, that we decided to cure our Cocktober blues with –what else — a visit with Karen Feld.  Yes, she and her pup Campari are the only souls that we can always count on to make us smile as the weather turns to pumpkins.

And thank goodness we did. Always on the hunt for good gossip, Feld recently caught up with Joan Rivers who told her all about her new BRAVO show modeled after Barbara Walters’ The View — that will star all gay men (and Rivers, too).

“Our show, called ‘Straight Talk,’ will be me and four wonderful, wonderful, wonderful gay men—I went through (I swear) 5,000 to find them—plus former New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey, who’ll be coming on as our special correspondent for politics and current events,” the QVC queen recently wrote on her blog. ”He’s adorable, funny, and at a real crossroads in his life.”

Rivers explained to Feld that McGreevey is the first she signed on to do the program, and her people consider it to be a “real coup.” No word yet on what Mrs. McGreevey thinks.

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