Karl Rove Vs. Alan Colmes Last Week On Fox News

Alan Colmes is the resident liberal on Fox News, co-heading the Hannity & Colmes evening program. As such, he's the token liberal for the network. Too bad they chose such an unintelligent, slow man for that role.

Last week, during one of his many appearances on that program, Karl Rove tangled with Colmes over the question of how McCain's stands on various issues, if not in line with Bush's, means Bush has been 'wrong.'

The format of the H&C program is that liberal guests are interviewed first by conservative anchor Sean Hannity, while conservative guests get tossed inane questions by liberal Colmes. Thus, Rove always talks with Colmes first.

These days, Karl Rove is on Bill O'Reilly's and H&C's programs about three times per week, if not nightly. The episode which caught my attention recently involved Colmes attempting to grill Rove on some topic- foreign policy, financial regulation, economics- take your pick, with which John McCain disagrees with some part of the current administration's past or present actions.

Colmes' disingenuous tactic, which he evidently thinks is deep, clever and effective, is to pose a conundrum to Rove along these lines,

'President Bush said (or did) X during his administration. That didn't work. Does John McCain agree with Bush, which means he also is wrong? Or does he disagree, meaning he's breaking ranks and admits Bush was wrong. Which is it?'

Of course, Colmes knows Rove was a major participant in the Bush administration for years, so these sorts of questions are also directly baiting Rove to argue over issues with which he may have been directly involved.

What is so sad is that Rove easily sidesteps Colmes with the always-correct, and true, reply,

'Alan, it's not that simple. President Bush had to deal with the world as it was at the time solutions were required over the past eight years. John McCain will have to deal with the world as it is today and for the next four years. Thus, he may have different views on how to solve problems today which we approached differently during the Bush administration.'

It's a fair and effective response. Moreover, Rove delivers it with a smile, almost winking to the audience that he isn't going to take advantage of the mental midget who asked the leading, ill-constructed question.

Unfortunately, Colmes does this with every Republican whose path he crosses, hoping vainly to lure somebody into his simplistic world in which, despite shifting sands of time and power, all prior decisions must be either sustained, or attacked, as right or wrong now, by any member of the Republican party.

Hopefully, at some point in the future, Fox will recruit a smarter man than Alan Colmes to fence with Hannity and the program's conservative guests.