Liberal Talk Radio

I know it’s August and everyone’s on vacation, but yesterday’s Meet the Press was a disgrace, one that should make NBC News bow its head in shame. David Gregory, who thinks he’s hot shit for his tough questioning of the President in the briefing room, had Karl Rove on for a half hour. But on MTP, “Stretch” showed none of his newfound bravado.

Rove laid into Hillary Clinton, full of misinformation about her health care plan, with nary a follow-up from Stretch, who was clearly more interested in the “horserace” than in any of the actual policies or how they might impact people’s lives.

But the real indignity was the final question, where Rove claimed that it was Congress, not the President, that was overstepping its Constitutional mandates by asking him to testify. His answer is so obviously mendacious it needs to be reprinted here in full:

MR. ROVE: Yeah, look, here’s the issue. There is a tension between Congress and the executive. Congress wants to be able to call the—this Congress in particular—wants to be able to call presidential aides up at its whim and convenience and have them testify. That would have a chilling effect on the ability of a president to get candid, straightforward advice from his aides. We have a constitutional separation of powers. The founders talk about this. They, they understood this issue, and they wanted to insulate the judicial, the executive and the legislative from each other in this respect. Imagine the outcry if the executive branch said, “We have a right to pull up any congressional aide we want and ask you at any time what advice you’re giving your member about a vote.” Imagine the outcry in the country if we said Supreme Court clerks can be called before Congress or called before the executive at any time to talk about what they’re, what they’re advising the Supreme Court Justices as they write their opinions.

The counsel’s office had made a very generous offer. If they want to find out what Harriet Miers and I said and did, we’d be happy to go up there and have a visit with them about it. But we would—have an obligation, when we’re sworn in as an officer inside the White House, a commissioned officer, we swear to uphold the Constitution, and the Constitution has a separation of powers. It should not—the Constitution should not be weakened, and we should not weaken the prerogatives of the power of the presidency just because somebody wants to have kind of show hearing on the Hill.

How’s that for the pot and the kettle? Rove accusing Congress of weaking in the Constitution. This is the man whose boss makes use of “signing statements,” that allow him to not enforce any law that he doesn’t feel like enforcing. Gregory could have followed up on this, but instead chose to show a cute and funny video of a young Karl Rove working for Richard Nixon. Aww!

Update: Media Matters has more on the “unasked questions” from Sunday.