this should be interesting

Karl Rove is going to testify in Congress.

Duo of Doom, concerned for your safety

Bill O'Reilly and Karl Rove have a lengthy discussion about how bad it will be if Obama stops using torture, wiretapping, and rendition.

Typical of FOX News's treatment of this subject, it is assumed that our 'coercive interrogation techniques' are what has saved us from another terrorist attack. Also typically, the claim is made that Obama desires to end the practice of rendition, and no distinction is made between regular rendition - taking someone in one country and moving them to another, not much objectionable about that - and the aspects of rendition Obama and many others disagree with, namely when the country they are taken to is one that is known to torture prisoners. And of course, for the trifecta, opposition to secret, illegal, warrantless wiretapping and data mining is dumbed down to mean you don't want to spy on terrorists at all.

As the icing on the idiot cake, it is hilarious when Rove criticizes Obama's pick of Panetta due to his lack of experience, considering the track record of the Bush White House he was a part of on picking qualified candidates for important jobs. Heckuva job Rove. Most of the people I have seen object to Panetta are people who likely have dirt under their nails with respect to the enhanced interrogation techniques. Seems like they are afraid of being called out for that and possibly going to jail and being subject to some enhanced sodomy techniques.

Working from home

More proof that just because Karl Rove physically left Washington doesn't mean he left in spirit. Many strange things have come out of the mouth of Karl Rove over the years, but his recent statements that back in 2002, it was Congress that was in a rush to vote to give Bush authorization to use force in Iraq, not Bush who was in a rush, must be by far the strangest that I have heard.

Especially taking into account Bush's common strategy of pressuring quick votes on dubious things to give lawmakers little time to review them, a fact alluded to in the most recent Democratic debate when Dennis Kucinich answered a question about why he voted against the patriot act by saying 'because I read it'.

One interesting thing is that Rove is actually saying it himself, where more often he'd just delegate the lying or half-truths to give himself plausible (in his mind) deniability (maybe a technique learned from Cheney who is infamous for not keeping written records of anything lest it be used against him at some point). Is it that Rove can't remember what happened and is trying to guess? Is he saying what he actually believes, maybe because of some ideological selective memory that makes him attribute bad things to people he doesn't like? Is he using the 'big lie' strategy again to rewrite history? The world may never know but with his exhaustive list of past dirty tricks it's not a good sign.

Update: Tom Daschle replies, here too.