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You knew it was going to happen. For all his big talk about being happy to talk to the House Judiciary Committee looking into the conviction and incarceration of Don Siegelman, when push came to shove, you had to know that Karl Rove would never, ever freely respond to the HJC subpoena. CQPolitics:

Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, cited executive privilege as the reason that the former White House adviser would not appear before the Commercial and Administrative Law Subcommittee on July 10.[..]

"Mr. Rove will respectfully decline to appear before the Subcommittee on July 10 on the grounds that Executive Privilege confers upon him immunity from process to respond to a subpoena directed to this subject," Luskin wrote.

Luskin renewed an offer that would have Rove submit to an off-the-record, untranscribed interview or answer written questions about the Siegelman case, but not the broader issue of the politicization of the Justice Department.

Not even man enough to stand up for his actions. Hear that, Karl? Not even man enough. Dan Abrams brings NYU Law School Professor Michael Waldman and former HJC counsel Julian Epstein to discuss the latest in Bush League (In)Justice:

Abrams: Okay, Michael, let me start with you: it is clear, Karl Rove is not coming. I mean, the House Judiciary Committee can say as much as they want, we're still hoping, we're still encouraging him to come, we're still insisting that he come, he's not coming. So what do they do now?

Waldman: Well, it's really quite remarkable, as you say, you can just say no to a lawful subpoena from Congress. Congress has a bunch of tools they can use. They can, of course, throw him in jail. There's a jail in the basement of the Capitol. That's probably the extreme remedy. There's all kinds of other things. They can cut off funding, they can hold up nominations, they can bring a lawsuit as has been the case in the Miers...the Harriet Miers contempt case. But what Congress has to have when it looks in its toolbox is not any of these tools but some backbone. Congress is a co-equal branch of government and it needs to stand up for its rights in this.

Backbone in Congress? What's that? I'll believe it when I see the perp walk.

(h/t Heather)

On Verdict with Dan Abrams, Newsweek reporter Jonathan Alter was fed up with the ridiculousness of the continued smear of Michelle Obama over her "proud of her country" statement and accuses conservative talk show host Lars Larson of promoting an agenda that tries to paint Michelle Obama as an angry, black woman, noting that there was no such outrage for John McCain's repeated statement that he "didn't love America until (he) was deprived of her company".

ALTER: Yeah, you're saying...you're just talking trash and nonsense. And it's a slur, and it's really, it's frankly kind of appalling that you and others would stoop to this level, because it's not true. You don't know Michelle Obama; you haven't spoken to her as I have. To many of her friends: black, white, many different people...let me just quickly try to dispense with this. You're taking her out of context intentionally. You're trying to twist her words for your own political purposes. It's low and it's borderline racist.

On "Verdict" last night, former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura made the perfect case as to why same-sex marriage is a civil rights issue and that the federal government has no right to tell you "who you can fall in love with." I was just waiting for Buchanan's head to explode.

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VENTURA: "Well, first of all, I made a statement when I was governor and stand by it today. Love is bigger than government. Who the hell are we as a government to tell people who you can fall in love with? I think it‘s absurd that fact it‘s even being debated. "

I couldn't have put it better myself, Governor.

Full transcript below the fold:

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Dan Abrams--most recently GM of MSNBC--looks at the laughably petulant and childish insinuations being made at FOXNews about Chris Matthews, moderator of last night's GOP debate. Apparently, the team over at FOXNews is incensed that Tweety would dare to say anything about the White House trying to control the flow and framing of the news and thereby taint George Bush as being anything less than the masterful Commander in Chief they say he is.

So what is the propaganda arm of the White House to do? Suggest that Chris Matthews is too liberal to be an unbiased moderator for the Republican debate, unlike their fair and balanced Sean Hannity and Brit Hume. Be still my gag reflex.

On Monday night, host Dan Abrams spoke with Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA), Pat Buchanan and Air America Radio host Randi Rhodes about the recently revealed Bush DoJ secret 2004 torture memos. The Democratic leadership, including Nancy Pelosi, Jane Harman and Jay Rockefeller, have all denied having seen the secret memos, but admit they were briefed on operational details (whatever that means) which leads Abrams asks the question -- did the Democrats know more about Bush's torture techniques than they were letting on, and if so, why didn't they speak out sooner?

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Abrams and Buchanan essentially try to turn this around and blame the Democrats, concluding they MUST have known about the torture techniques in the program, labeling them as hypocrites for not speaking out about what they knew. Unbelievable. There's so much misinformation and misdirection being thrown about. So even though the Democratic leadership have spoken out (Randi Rhodes brings up Senator Rockefeller's concerns about the program), just because Bush said they were fully briefed must mean they were...and we all know how forthcoming this administration has been. Buchanan seems less disturbed by the notion of our country torturing people (watch him throw out Jack Bauer hypotheticals--including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who confessed to just about everything under the sun while being tortured) than trying to find a way to pin it on the Democratic majority in Congress.