Karl in the Crimea — Rove, not Marx

 

[UPDATE: Rove in Yalta]

Karl Rove is roving the beaches of the Crimea, not the committee rooms of Congress. Andrew Malcolm of the Los Angeles Times reached the former White House Senior Svengali by cell phone in the Eastern European resort to ask for his reaction to the death of Tony Snow.

Mr. Rove ignored a subpoena and failed to appear for testimony before a House Judiciary subcommittee. According to Rep. Linda Sánchez (D, CA-39), Mr. Rove’s lawyer, Robert D. Luskin (a partner in Patton Boggs LLP), “forgot” to tell committee staffers that his client had scheduled what Rep. Chris Cannon (R, UT-3) described as a “long-planned trip” abroad.

The Crimea, on the Black Sea, is a famed tourist area, a peninsula that was part of the USSR. Since the breakup of the Soviet Union, the area, ancestral homeland of the Tatar people, has become an “autonomous republic” within Ukraine. This seems to be controversial, as some Ukrainians see the “autonomous republic” status as the start of a separatist movement; others see it as a smoke screen for continued Russian interference in the peninsula, long a strategic naval asset.

Ukraine does not have an extradition treaty with the US, according to the Congressional Research Service, and “Contempt of Congress” may not be a crime in the Crimea. At least we don’t have to worry about Mr. Rove obtaining undue influence over the Crimean president — there isn’t one.  The Head of State of Crimea is the President of Ukraine (Viktor Yushchenko).

Image by Mike Licht.