Paul Begala Cuts Karl Rove No Slack

Unbeknownst to the I-Man, Paul Begala is not just a former top aide to Bill Clinton, he’s also a licensed attorney. Though he’s never practiced, he’s a member of the bar.

“When I was in law school my dean used to say, ‘If you want to hide something from Begala, put it in a law book,’” said Begala. “He’ll never find it there.”

His time in the White House long over, Begala now writes books where he mocks people like President George W. Bush. He also contributes to Communist websites like The Huffington Post and The Daily Beast, for which he recently reviewed Karl Rove’s memoir, “Courage and Consequence.”

Admittedly not a fan of “kiss-and-tell” books from former aides, Begala stipulated, “Spare me the suck-up-and-tell!”

Rove’s book, he said, “is hagiography, not autobiography.” It’s also packed full of lies, according to Begala, particularly about the war in Iraq.

“Rove argued in his book that Bush did not lie about the war in Iraq, and yes, Bush did, and so did Rove,” said Begala. “Here’s the lie: it’s the threat, stupid.”

The lie was not when Bush claimed, and intelligence indicated, that Saddam had weapons, Begala explained. “The lie was that the mere possession of those weapons required an invasion right away.”

Bush and his cronies insisted Saddam was “an immediate threat, a chemical threat, a biological threat, a nuclear threat, a unique and urgent threat, a grave and gathering threat,” Begala recalled. “They were all lies.”

And if Democrats said or believed the same things, Begala conceded they were wrong too. “It was all a lie and people are dead because of that,” he said. “And Rove ought to be held to account for it. He was the architect, or one of them, that lied.”

Begala emphatically agreed with Imus’s assessment that the U.S. only went to war in Iraq to demonstrate to the world—particularly to the Muslim world—that it wouldn’t stand for an attack like the one that happened on 9/11.

Following a brief Begala analysis of the health care bill (“I think the Democrats have come realize that failure’s not an option”), Imus declared, “I’m tired of talking about politics.”

So Begala lamented that his University of Texas Longhorns probably won’t go very far in the NCAA tournament, having lost three times to Baylor University this year.

“When you lose three times to a team that has guys named LaceDarious and Tweety,” said Begala, naming Baylor players. “You suck.”
    
-Julie Kanfer