August 19, 2007
FNS: Rove and Romney's dog
Chris Wallace interviewed Karl Rove for the first half of Fox News Sunday, subjecting the departing political strategist to a grilling about his refusal to testify under oath in front of a hostile, Democrat-led Congress, as well as his role in the Plame-Wilson non-scandal.
Wallace asked, "Why won't you go to Congress and testify?"
Rove answered, "Because of the Constitution," explaining that the separation of powers allows a president to keep confidential his consultations with advisors and staff, adding that the president had offered to allow Rove and other members to answer questions from Congress in a closed-door-session, an offer the Dems rejected.
Wallace persisted, asking Rove about his role in the firings of the U.S. attorneys; Rove smiled and said, "Nice try," saying executive privilege prevented him from answering.
The host said that executive privilege protected the president from the legislative branch, not the press. Rove replied that Wallace was in essence an agent of the Congress in this context, asking the same questions they wanted answered -- and he wasn't gonna play.
The conversation moved on to Plame-Wilson, with Wallace hammering Rove on speaking to the press about the former CIA analyst. Rove said that, when asked by Time Magazine's Matt Cooper about rumors of Plame's involvement in getting her husband -- Joe "I wouldn't know the truth if it bit me in the butt" Wilson -- sent to Niger, he answered, "I heard that, too."
Wallace pressed him for more information, but Rove parried, saying that there was an ongoing lawsuit brought by Plame-Wilson, and he was only going to discuss that which was already a matter of public record.
Rove said that he never confirmed that Plame worked for the CIA, only agreeing with Cooper that he'd been hearing the same kind of scuttlebutt around D.C. Wallace then played three clips from 2003: Pres. Bush saying he'd fire anyone who leaked information about a CIA officer's status; and two clips of former White House Spokesman Scott McClellan denying any involvement of White House staff in the hubbub.
Wallace turned to Rove in a GOTCHA! moment and asked, "Well?"
Rove said -- again -- that he never revealed Plame's status, didn't even know it, and pointed out that if she had been working covertly and protected by the law, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald could have and would have indicted Richard Armitage, the in-the-pocket-of-the-Dems former State Department big cheese, who has admitted being the source for Robert Novak's column wherein he mentioned Plame and her CIA job.
Wallace asked what Rove thought about Joe Wilson; Rove smiled and threw it back at the host, asking Wallace, "What do you think about Joe Wilson?"
Wallace smiled tightly and answered, "Nice try."
At the end of the show, Wallace read some viewer mail, all of which dealt with last week's interview with Mitt Romney, and his aggressive questioning about the candidate transporting the family dog in a kennel strapped to the roof of the family car -- twenty-four years ago.
One person wrote that it was silly to spend so much time on the matter, adding that people see dogs riding all over the interior of cars -- including on the driver's lap -- as well as in the beds of pickups and the backs of SUVs. Furthermore, twenty-four years ago, kids (and dogs, too) used to ride in the backs of trucks, because it was fun.
But another letter writer was deeply offended by Romney's excuses for the dog's wild ride, particularly the line that the dog "liked" riding in the kennel. Moved to high dudgeon by the candidate's -- presumed -- recklessness, the writer said many dog lovers would refuse to vote for him because of this dastardly 1983 incident.
Well, I'm coo-coo-for-cocoa-puffs about my dog, and I wasn't bothered in the least by Romney's answer (other than the fact that it was kind of weird to justify the conduct by saying that the dog "liked" it). No, what really bothered me was the fact that Wallace wasted so much time during the interview on such an ancient, meaningless story.
Times have changed and so have safety standards and practices.
Like the first letter-writer noted, kids used to ride untethered in every conceivable space in a car. I have fond memories of piling into the back of the Red Bomber, a 1963 Dodge Dart wagon owned by my friend's parents, and having a non-stop roughhouse party -- with that big rear window down, too. Heck, I travelled from L.A. to Humboldt in the back of a stake-bed truck on a camping trip with the YMCA, with nary a safety device to be had, other than bales of hay to cushion the fall if we bounced out.
The question was stupid; it diminished the asker in my eyes. Chris, I'm disappointed in you.
Posted by Mike Lief at August 19, 2007 08:56 AM
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