Reckoning for Rove?

In his last White House days, George W. Bush left him a get-out-of-jail pass, but Karl Rove is still in the sights of the House Judiciary Committee over his role in the firing of the US attorneys.

Chairman John Conyers has issued a subpoena to Rove to appear for a deposition on February 2nd, saying, "Change has come to Washington, and I hope Karl Rove is ready for it."

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

Now his lawyer is saying Rove received a renewed privilege assertion from Bush before he left office but that he will consult with Obama's White House counsel about the new Administration's views on the subject.

It will be a test for the new president's future-oriented tolerance (see Lieberman, Joe), but Karl Rove has become a symbol for eight years of lawlessness in seeking political advantage at all costs.

Even the least blood-thirsty of observers will sympathize with Conyers' assertion, "After two years of stonewalling, it's time for him to talk."

Libby: Better Marc Rich Than a Dreyfus

As House Democrats talk of investigating and even censuring President Bush’s commutation of his sentence, Scooter Libby is being compared by Republicans to Marc Rich, the recipient of Bill Clinton’s pardoning largesse.

This debate promises to be more tonic for the state of public morality than the one that would have been followed Bush’s failure to do so.

Imagine the righteous fury of Rush Limbaugh and right-wing bloggers playing Zola to Libby’s Captain Dreyfus with photoshopped images of Cheney’s former chief of staff in prison stripes with numbers on his chest. Compare that to their muttering and bumbling defense of the commutation.

Libby as rescued loser serves the cause of exposing Bush-Cheney lawlessness much better than Libby the martyr would have.

"We're trying to examine the use and misuse of the clemency power and the commutation power," says John Conyers, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee as Rep. Robert Wexler drafts a resolution to censure Bush for "an unconscionable abuse of authority."

With the coming Senate showdown over subpoenas of White House witnesses in the U.S. Attorneys scandal, this proposed examining and censuring, although it will lead nowhere, is a nice side show to the main attraction.