Rove confronted over 'outrageous' war claims Former White House political guru Karl Rove faced a combative Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) on Fox News Sunday, who demanded that Rove retract recent statements he made suggesting Democrats were behind the push for a vote authorize the war in Iraq in 2002. Host Chris Wallace lost control of his guests, brought on to discuss the future of Iraq, while the two heatedly discussed the run-up to the war.
"I hope you'll take this opportunity though, to retract the outrageous statements you made suggesting that Congress pushed the president to vote on the Iraq war resolution during the [2002] election," Van Hollen told Rove, who was sitting only inches away. Rove quickly shuffled through his notes indicating he came prepared for a confrontation on this point.
"Cearly things have not gone right in Iraq and you've tried to revise history and suggest that Congress got ahead of the president on the Iraq war resolution," Van Hollen said.
"No, that's not what I said," Rove responded. "What I said was that the general conventional wisdom was that the president was the only person pushing the vote on the Iraq war resolution before the November election and that's simply not true."
The two traded barbs, both armed with quotes made in during the 2002 campaign. That year, Republicans made significant gains in both Houses of Congress, taking away the Democrats razor-thin Senate majority, largely on national issues issues, primarily Iraq and the threat posed by Saddam Hussein.
Wallace repeatedly tried to break into the discussion and move to the current debate over Iraq, but was rebuffed more than once by both Rove and Van Hollen, each eager to respond to the last point made by his adversary.
This video is from Fox Fox News Sunday, broadcast on December 2, 2007.
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