Karl Rove erupted on the Fox’s Tom Sullivan Show today when discussing the push by the Department of Justice for potential prosecutions of CIA interrogators for their actions in handling al-Qaeda detainees.  He didn’t mince any words, calling Barack Obama “cowardly” for ducking responsibility for the decision to press forward with investigations despite promises from Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder that the administration wanted to “look forward”:

ROVE: I will tell you though I’m just furious about what attorney general Eric Holder did in naming a special prosecutor to go after the CIA for its use of enhanced interrogation techniques. These techniques were adopted only after the CIA consulted with the defense department with outside experts and the Justice Department about the standards, received legal guidance from the Justice Department authorizing their use, and they operated within that framework – five years ago there was a review of those methods. They found that in one instance the methods had been violated and abused and that person was prosecuted. This is now a second investigation – we are going to regret the moment when we told the CIA that if you have a high value target you run the risk of 5 years, 10 years down the line of being prosecuted for abiding by the legal advice you were given by the Justice Department. If you’re a smart CIA agent today, you’re not looking to be on the front line of the war on terror. You’re hoping you’ll get assigned to New Zealand or you’re going to have that assignment to Luxemburg rather than going to a place where you’ll come into contact with unsavory people, because at some point you could be sanctioned for doing your job protecting this country. This is just cowardly of the President of the United States to surrender this responsibility to Holder. It is irresponsible on the part of the Attorney General to do this. It hits at the security of the United States of America at a time when we‘re at war, and I just can’t see straight I’m just so spitting angry about it.

SULLIVAN: Its obvious that the President is shirking it by saying “It’s the attorney general, I have no say”, and the attorney general is saying “I have no say”…

ROVE: The attorney general works for him! He needs to be circumspect about it, but if he believes he is irresponsible to do this, which he said on several occasions that he wants to look forward not back, then he ought to step in and he should have told Holder “don’t do this.” And if Holder didn’t agree with him he had the ability to resign.

SULLIVAN: Even Holder said, “I don’t want to do this,” and now he’s turning around and using the special prosecutor card.

ROVE: Well and that’s another thing, rather than taking responsibility upon his own shoulders and saying there will be a Justice Department investigation led by people that I name who will be responsible to me, he’s putting it in the hands of a special prosecutor so he can wash his hands of it and not be held responsible for it. Again I do not use the word “cowardly” loosely, I use it advisedly, but this is cowardly on both the part of the White House and on the part of Attorney General Holder and its irresponsible o the part of both.

I think Rove is right on both counts, but especially with Holder. Barack Obama can argue that the White House should not be ordering an AG to pursue or stop an investigation, which would on its own look like political interference in what should be a non-political process.   That may not be a very courageous position to take, but it has some basis in philosophy of executive non-interference in prosecutions.

However, the special prosecutor route is indeed a cowardly dodge, one which shows that Holder is very aware of the political risks of his decision.  If Holder wants to pursue investigations, then let Holder be responsible for their outcomes.  Special prosecutors are unaccountable and usually go off on wild tangents, creating a lot more political damage than actual enlightenment.

Update: Here’s the direct link to Sullivan’s show.