Rove bobs and weaves on Siegelman issue

May 25, 2008

The House Judiciary Committee subpoenaed Karl Rove this week, in order to get his side of the story on, among other things, his possible role in the imprisonment of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman. This morning, George Stephanopoulos asked Rove directly if he had been in communication with the Justice Department about the prosecution.

Rove didn’t seem like he wanted to talk about it.

Josh Marshall reminds us why this is so important:

There’s never been any doubt in my mind that Siegelman was the victim of selective prosecution. Even the government’s theory of the main case against him amounted to something that is standard in contemporary American politics and actually much less worse than lots of other stuff that no one thinks twice about. Cracking the nut of White House involvement has always been more difficult; but the evidence for it is quite strong.

If Siegelman’s and Alabama GOP lawyer Jill Simpson’s stories are true, that would make this case the centerpiece example of the corruption of the DOJ revealed by the US Attorney firing scandal. In fact, it would make most of what we know now seem minor by comparison.

It’s precisely why Rove was subpoenaed, and why Rove is going to fight like hell to avoid testifying.

Post Script: As an aside, ThinkProgress, most notably Amanda Terkel and Matt Corley, have been doing a lot of heavy lifting, highlighting the fact that Rove keeps appearing in the media as some kind of objective political analyst, when he is, in fact, an advisor to the McCain campaign.

Stephanopoulos, to his credit, introduced Rove as “President Bush’s former deputy chief of staff and political strategist, an informal adviser to John McCain’s campaign.” Rove balked at the description.

Rove can protest all he wants, but Stephanopoulos was right to call him an advisor to the McCain campaign. That Fox News has gone 110 days with Rove as an on-air contributor without disclosing his relationship to McCain continues to be an ethical lapse on the Republican network’s part.

No, it’s not an “ethical lapse” at Fox. That implies one has ethics to “lapse” or “lose.” With Faux, that is very definitely “a fact not in evidence.”

  • shillary is quoting kkkarl too without acknowledging that he is a mclame adviser.

  • Right, Tom.

    If or when Fox Propaganda really acts in an ethical manner (when it doesn’t support the party line to do so), that will be your “man bites dog” story.

    Low (or no) journalistic standards and nonexistent ethics at Fox are what we see every day.

  • Good work, littlebear. You got all three of your silly nicknames into one, mercifully short sentence.

  • Seems that the MSM is growing a very small set of cahones. Here’s hoping they don’t lose them before they mature.

  • OkieFromMuskogee – how ’bout this one for ya – a little something to amuse yourself and the trailer trash you keep company with:

    shillary=kkkarl=rush limpballs=mclame

  • I notice that Stephanopoulos didn’t ask this question till the end of the segment, and with the clock ticking, giving Rove the maximum opportunity to bob, weave and filibuster to run out the time.

    That said, the non-denial was so obvious that I think we can say with little fear of contradiction that Rove was well involved with the Siegelman prosecution. The fact that the White House is still covering for him with these transparently bogus executive privilege claims is reason number 975 why Bush should be impeached.

  • Either he testifies, publicly and under oath, or lock him up and throw away the key. The implications of the Siegelman point toward the type of behavior we have never accepted from foreign countries, let alone our own. As a public servant, paid by the public, Rove has a responsibility to either exonerate himself, or come clean about his behavior. The criminal implications are far too strong and far too serious for executive privilege to even be an issue – unless Rove and his Bushie sycophants want to argue that abject lawlessness is a protected executive privilege. In that case, have at it. It’s an argument I’d love to hear.

  • Classic non-denial? Sure.
    But it seems that beyond that obvious point, Rove is resetting the bar over and over again:

    “I learned about Siegelman through the newspapers.”
    “I learned about Siegelman through the newspapers.”
    “I learned about Siegelman through the newspapers.”

    Okay…
    There are lots of ways to handle a non-denial denial. So why does Rove always retreat to that point?
    There must be a legalistic reason. It is clearly a hinge point. He is hanging his hat there for a legal reason. He hopes to leverage that point to his advantage. The real question is: How?

  • It’s time for congress to hold Rove accountable for his actions. This isn’t something to be taken lightly, it threatens our nation more so than any foriegn enemy. Go to http://www.donsiegelman.com and see for yourself.

  • ROTFLMLiberalAO @ 10

    Yep… and I had to go back and listen again. I read about / heard about / learned about Seigelman’s arrest and indictment by reading about it in the newspaper. Which in and by itself is probably true. He learned about his arrest and indictment from the newspaper. The question to ask is “Did you initiate the investigation of Seigelman?”

  • Rove is a part of the political terrorist cell that calls itself the Bush Administration. Since Bush and his Justice Department have deemed “aggressive interrogation tactics” permissible in the War on Terror as a means to preserve, protect, and defend the Homeland, it would only be fitting to apply those “tactics” on someone like Rove.

    Libya would be nice….

  • Rove has a problem using the ‘executive privilege’ argument. Unless he admits speaking with Bush about it, then there is no ‘executive privilege’ established (Georgetown constitutional professor – name forgotten). In other words, just because you work for the President, you do not have blanket coverage for everything you do, or say.

    The thing about Rove is, he does not even have to open his mouth. He just looks guilty. Perhaps, it is his total condescending arrogant persona. He reminds me of Heinrich Himmler.

  • can’t bust kkkarl rove – he is running BOTH mclame’s and shillary’s campaign.

  • On the Post Script, personally, I wish more Republicans would use Karl Rove as their adviser.

    It is not every adviser that can take a candidate from polling in the 90% or so approval ratings that Bush had post 9/11 and turn them into one of the most unpopular presidents ever.

    Go Rove!!!! Do to McCain what you did to Bush.

    Except, McCain doesn’t start at 90% approval, it’s more like 50% or so. So…. 90 to 28, that’s a fall of 62%. To do the same to McCain, he will need to go down to at least -12%. A -12% approval rating is unprecedented.

    Karl Rove has a lot of work to do if he hopes to do to McCain what he did to Bush.

  • it looks like i’m not paying attention, i know, but when i was here earlier the postscript wasn’t up and i didn’t “refresh” before adding my comment above.

    as i was thinking about these two pieces, i realized, well, duh, there must be more of this. was this “interview” part of a larger pre-rehabilitation scheme for karl? a la his book tour?

    they’re cleaning him up for something. god, whatever it is, i hope they do not succeed. it can only lead to tears for the rest of us.

  • “I learned about Siegelman through the newspapers.”

    Maybe Yoo can get him off the hook. It’ll depend on the precise meaning of “learned” — and “through” — and “newqspapers”. Oh yeah, and “Siegelman”.

    Wasn’t it Hamlet had the right idea? “First thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.”

  • We all know Rove used the DoJ for his own bidding to get rid of political rivals…he is daring us to prove it. Much like someone daring Little bear to prove Rove is running Hillary’s campaign or Obama’s for that matter. There are things we know he is guilty of and we should focus on those. Siegleman’s case will get charges brought on Rove and his denials are too blatant to hold up under investigation and questioning. More will come out in time but it is shameless that he is still walking around touting himself as some expert.

    For those who keep acting like he accomplished something a closer look reveals he has been wrong on his campaign advice and lost elections for those following it. Just because he did some gutter political tricks in the primary doesn’t make him an expert but merely one who was willing to do things others considered too sleazy. Rove is consistently wrong on everything. now the universe is about to get wrong on Rove.

    • Comments are closed.