Karl Rove Cited For Contempt

Posted by Richard Blair, The All Spin Zone at 10:03 AM on July 30, 2008.

The House Judiciary Committee voted this morning to hold Karl Rove in contempt of congress. Big deal. The entire Bush administration has held congress in contempt for the past seven years. And there is no intent on the part of the House to actually, you know, enforce the citation. So what's the point?

Wonderful.

So what?

The Bush administration has held congress in extreme contempt for the past seven-plus years. For five of those years, it didn't much matter. The past two years haven't made much of a difference either.

So, Conyer's committee cites Karl Rove for contempt of congress because he wouldn't comply with a subpoena, claiming "executive privilege". And now, the full House must vote on the citation, at least if that isn't off of Speaker Pelosi's table, too.

Riddle me this: what difference does it make? Are they gonna send the sheriff to Fox News to pick up Rove prior to his next appearance? Not a chance. Send a strongly worded letter to his lawyer? Probably. The bottom line is that nothing is going to happen, and in fact, the GOP members of the committee got it mostly correct:

It's all political theater. Quit wasting time and taxpayer dollars with stupid stuff** like this that the Democratic Party congressional leadership has absolutely no compunction (or apparently, ability) to back up with action.

** I'm being snarky. Contempt of congress is not "stupid stuff"; it's really a pretty serious charge. But it's thoroughly meaningless when there's no intent of enforcement action.

Richard Blair is the blogmaster of All Spin Zone.