Rove v. Van Hollen: Sunday, Sunday, Sunday

At the beginning of last week, we told you about a new tactic Karl Rove has embraced in which he blames the Iraq War on Congress circa 2002. This morning he was challenged on those assertions by DCCC Chairman Chris Van Hollen.

Rove had his bag of tricks at the ready, but Van Hollen (and later, ThinkProgress) were there to refute them:

Van Hollen then laid down his trump card: a quote by former Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer in today's Washington Post: "It was definitely the Bush administration that set it in motion and determined the timing, not the Congress. I think Karl in this instance just has his facts wrong."

"I disagree with my colleague," Rove responded, suggesting that Fleischer wasn't in the position to know the truth about the issue. "I suspect Ari is not aware of and was not privileged to these conversations and was not aware of these quotes. I was in the middle of the White House and I saw these comments..." But the fact that Rove was "in the middle of the White House" is irrelevant, since his argument is based on a series of quotes from Democrats that are in the public record.

Ari Fleischer carried water for the Bush administration like an aqueduct. I'm sure Rove wasn't expecting Ari to go against him on this one, but maybe the difference is that Ari thinks he's playing for the home team by owning the Iraq War, and Rove thinks he's playing for the home team by shifting the blame somewhere else. It is a fascinating dynamic that indicates a great deal about how each man (and perhaps, how everyone inside the Bush administration) perceives his own role in the gang.

The previously-linked Huffington Post story has the video.