The Selective Reticence of Karl Rove

He is refusing to testify before Congress about Bush crimes but he just won't shut up in the Wall Street Journal about how Barack Obama is using his political genius for the '08 election.

Citing a letter from the Bush Justice Department, Karl Rove's lawyer claims he is "constitutionally immune from compelled congressional testimony" but is willing to grant an "informal interview" or answer written questions about the prosecution of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman, whose ouster Bush's Brain is accused of arranging.

But Rove is showing no such reticence in today's Journal claiming that "the Obama for President effort has cribbed an awful lot from the Bush-Cheney playbooks of 2000 and 2004."

On closer inspection, the "awful lot" turns out to be the nuts and bolts of modern electioneering, although Rove insists that "by setting a world indoor record for jettisoning past positions, Mr. Obama may be risking his reputation for truthfulness. A candidate's credibility, once lost, is very hard to restore, regardless of how fine an organization he has built."

Lost credibility is a subject Rove knows inside out and, if the Judiciary Committee can make its subpoenas hold up in court, he will get ample opportunity to expatiate on it under oath, not for pay by Fox News and the Journal, but under penalty for perjury.

Meanwhile, Obama and the rest of us may be excused for not wanting to hear the brilliant insights of the man who made the White House a cesspool of lies and deception.