The pressure builds on Karl Rove

Karl Rove loves to talk. He wants everyone to know he's the smartest political mastermind ever. Rove needs to talk to Congress -- under oath:

The House Judiciary Committee has prepared a report on the Siegelman case, and several other questionable prosecutions. Ms. Simpson told the committee staff under oath that Rob Riley — the son of Alabama’s Republican governor, Bob Riley — told her that his father and Mr. Canary discussed the Siegelman case with Mr. Rove. She said the younger Mr. Riley also told her that Mr. Rove had spoken to the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section about getting Mr. Siegelman indicted.

If these charges are true, they suggest that the justice system was turned into a partisan tool, and that Mr. Siegelman’s freedom may have been taken away because of his political allegiances.

Mr. Rove has already defied a Senate subpoena on the issue of politicized prosecutions, claiming executive privilege, and he seems intent on defying the House’s subpoena. His claim of executive privilege is not only weak; it is shamefully cynical.

If he was drumming up political prosecutions in the Justice Department, and talking about it with operatives in Alabama, those conversations are not privileged. And if there is any privilege to be protected — such as a conversation with the president that did not involve illegality — he would still need to show up in Congress and plead the privilege to specific questions.

It is time for Michael Mukasey, the attorney general, to stand up for justice by enforcing Congress’s subpoenas. If he will not do that, Congress must ensure that its investigative authority is not thwarted.

Mr. Rove seems willing to talk about this case everywhere except where he is required to: in Congress, in public, under oath. The American people, and Mr. Siegelman, are counting on Congress to find out the truth.

Karl should be pontificating the elections from a jail cell. But, any media type who interviews Rove from here on out better drill down down on the Siegelman and U.S. Attorneys scandals. Rove isn't a fellow pundit. He's the subject of a congressional investigation -- for possible criminal behavior. That's what makes Rove newsworthy these days. Not his political predictions.