After spending the better part of four days last week examining in minute detail Sen. Hillary Clinton’s remark that the Republicans are running the U.S. House of Representatives like “a plantation” — even though her statement mirrored similar remarks by disgraced Republican former House Speaker Newt Gingrich — the Kool Kids in the Capitol allowed Karl Rove to lie with impunity last Friday when he said:

ROVE: [S]ome leading Democrats have made wild and reckless and false charges against the president, and some even call for his removal from office. Let me be as clear as I can: President Bush believes if Al Qaeda is calling somebody in America, it is in our national security interest to know who they’re calling and why. Some important Democrats clearly disagree.

In spite of the fact that Rove is under scrutiny by federal prosectors for treasonously revealing the identity of a CIA agent for partisan political gain — not one of the bewigged and perfumed million dollar babies in the D.C. press corps batted an eye over this slanderous falsehood. Media Matters sets the record straight:

In fact, ever since a December 16 New York Times article first revealed the domestic wiretapping program, Democratic leaders have consistently acknowledged the need for U.S. intelligence agencies to eavesdrop on the communications of suspected Al Qaeda operatives. At the same time, Democrats — and numerous Republicans and conservatives — raised serious questions about Bush’s decision to bypass the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which, except as otherwise specifically provided, requires the government to obtain a warrant to conduct domestic surveillance for foreign intelligence purposes.