Rove MUST Testify Under Oath

When the law is on your side, you argue the law. When the facts are on your side you argue the facts. When neither the law nor the facts are on your side, you pound on the table, jump up and down, and scream like hell.

There is only one reason you pitch a fit and threaten to refuse to honor congressional subpoenas and fight like hell to avoid testifying under oath - with no record of the “interview” no less!!!

No, you take that tack when you got nothing else, and you are in a hell of a lot of trouble if the truth comes out, and you face perjury charges when they catch you lying under oath or Obstruction of Congress charges when the transcript reviews show inconsistencies and point towards other possible obstructions.

Karl Rove is a feckless, mendacious, untrustworthy, honorless lout who fancies himself above the law. He is not deserving of any benefit of the doubt; indeed, all prior actions and behaviors indicate that just exactly the opposite is the case.

Joe Conason at Salon thinks so too.

Rove is a proven liar who cannot be trusted to tell the truth even when he is under oath, unless and until he is directly threatened with the prospect of prison time. Or has everyone suddenly forgotten his exceedingly narrow escape from criminal indictment for perjury and false statements in the Valerie Plame Wilson investigation? Only after four visits to the grand jury convened by special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, and a stark warning from Fitzgerald to defense counsel of a possible indictment, did Rove suddenly remember his role in the exposure of Plame as a CIA agent.

Not only did Rove lie, but he happily let others lie on his behalf, beginning in September 2003, when Scott McClellan, then the White House press secretary, publicly exonerated him of any blame in the outing of Plame. From that autumn until his fifth and final appearance before the grand jury in April 2006, the president's "boy genius" concealed the facts about his leak of Plame's CIA identity to Time magazine correspondent Matt Cooper.

There is no reason to believe that Rove would ever have told the truth if Fitzgerald had not forced Cooper to testify before the grand jury and surrender his incriminating notes, with a contempt citation and the threat of a long sojourn in jail. Indeed, there is no reason to think that even knowing Cooper had testified would have made Rove testify accurately. He failed to do so from July 2005 until April 2006, after all. But in December 2005, Fitzgerald impaneled a new grand jury and started to present evidence against him.

Remember all those trips back to the Grand Jury he made. We have absolutely no reasons to trust this man, and multiple reasons not to trust him.

And for crying out loud, haven’t these congress people raised any kids? If they have raised a kid or two, they should recognize this tactic. Every responsible parent knows this behavior pattern and knows how to deal with it. It is when you now the little bastards are at least as guilty as you know they are and probably more so by a factor of at least three, so get busy and search their room. This is where responsible parents dig in their heels and start punishing.

This lot doesn’t know how to act because they obviously got no raisin’ when they were comin’ up, and nobody ever held them accountable or told them no. But better late than never…