This is an extraordinary exchange, on many levels, between Bill O'Reilly and Karl Rove. For starters, Bill-o doesn't seem to know or at least pretends not to know, who Don Siegelman is. Introducing the segment, O'Reilly looks down at his notes and struggles to come up with Siegelman's name, and even calls him "Donald" which I have never heard any media personality use to refer to the former Alabama Governor. It would be quite remarkable if O'Reilly was truly unfamiliar with the Siegelman case. More likely O'Reilly was intentionally attempting to minimize the significance of the Siegelman case in an effort to make Rove's failure to appear before the House Judiciary committee appear more reasonable.
Next, O'Reilly clearly doesn't believe in oversight. At least during Republican administrations. House subcommittees are seemingly valueless, according to O'Reilly, since their purpose is merely to be a "dog and pony show" that tries to embarrass witnesses.
Meanwhile, O'Reilly claims that no one in their right mind would want to appear before a House committee. But the fact of the matter is that most witnesses voluntarily testify before House committees because they have information that might be helpful to our government and country. In right wing parlance, one could argue that it is often the patriotic thing to do.
O'Reilly then makes some kind of straw-man argument claiming that "they wouldn't" testify before a House subcommittee without identifying who is the "they" he is referring to. He goes on to say that "they" wouldn't even appear on his show before calling them "pinheads". Maybe O'Reilly is speaking about the TV critics or maybe he has the House committee in mind (Democrats only one supposes). Undoubtedly O'Reilly's audience understands "they" and "pinheads" to be code words for SP's (secular progressives), Democrats and the looney left.
Rove's answer is equally problematic. Note that Rove claims that the White House has invoked executive privilege which prevents him from testifying before the House committee but that he has also indicated "five times" that he would be willing to answer the same questions from House members, either by meeting with them or in writing. Thus, presumably the White House is not worried about Rove answering questions from Congress, but only answering questions under oath. Could anything be more absurd?
The transcript...
Bill O'Reilly: [TV critics] gave you a hard time about not wanting to go testify in front of a House subcommittee about Don, Donald Siegelman (looking at notes), you know. Now who in their right mind, and this is a non-partisan thing, who in their right mind would want to go in to a House committee - which is just a dog and pony show trying to embarrass whoever it is, you, me, whoever has to go - who in their right mind would want to do that? They wouldn't. They won't come on this program most of these pinheads, okay. So they give you a hard time about that and I guess they are giving you a hard time because you worked at the Bush administration and now you work at FNC.
Karl Rove: Yeah, well on the first one you know, well, in a lot of them the questions were polite but they were clearly ill-informed. They said why do you refuse to testify. I said look, I've not invoked any privilege. The White House has invoked an executive privilege - the Constitutional authority of the President not to have his aides drawn up to the Hill for any reason that they want. And I've said but I have been five times offered through my lawyer to meet with Democrat members, Democrat staff, Republican members, Republican staff or answer in writing questions that they may want to submit about this in order to preserve the President's prerogatives - separation of powers - while at the same time giving them information they supposedly want and not foreclosing any option.
O'Reilly: Yeah, but you know they don't want that.
Rove: Sure they don't. They want a circus.
O'Reilly: They want to get you up there and mock you and the TV critics want to see you disparaged.
Rove: Sure. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly.
O'Reilly: Now why in your opinion - I'm in journalism 35 years, you are in politics, I guess, about the same time - why is the print media particularly so left wing in this country in your opinion?
