Karl Rove refused to testify today before Congress. Should we be surprised? No. He claims he will talk informally and off the record- that way Congress can have the information they seek, yet Rove cannot be held accountable for what he actually says.
The contempt with which Rove and others hold the law and Constitution of the United States continues to apall me on a daily basis. Rove has never been held accountable as an appointed advisor, to the electorate for his actions. He is still liable under civil and criminal law, however, but he is seeking to end-run those options as well. From a legal stand point, I admire his attempts to steer clear of any responsibility- who wants to go to jail, anyway? But as a citizen, I am gobsmacked with the audacity of the administration failing to take responsibility for any of its less than honest or legal actions. If you can’t pay the time, don’t do the crime in the first place.
I hope Congress eventually finds Rove in contempt and holds him accountable for what he has done. The Attorney general firings may seem obscure, and much like finally arresting Al Capone for tax evasion. But in reality, the way the Bush Administration handled the Justice Department, taking it from an independent branch of Government whose job it is in part not only to defend the Country when it is a party to a suit in the Court of Law, and ensure that things are done by the book within the Executive Branch, into a partisan lackey of the executive branch, charged to see how they could work around rather than within the bounds of the Constitution is disturbing.
I hope the next President has more respect for the Constitution, and sees it more than as “a piece of paper” and instead as ideals upon which this Country is founded and ideals to which we should aspire.