Bush, Rove Joke About White House Felonies. Reporters Laugh.

I have a lot of sympathy for David Gregory, who was pressed into a bad "comedy" routine with Karl Rove at the Radio & Correspondents' Dinner tonight. Rove had already cracked a lame joke about Patrick Fitzgerald, while mangling his first name as "Peter." Then he and Gregory went on to "rap" with the bad comedian hosting the event. (Video here, courtesy Atrios.)

Bear in mind that the real subject of Rove's humor was the conviction of a senior White House official for committing a felony while serving this Administration. Make that three felonies. Proven, beyond a reasonable doubt. That would be three felonies committed by someone on Rove's team.

Three felonies that involved using journalists to destroy a woman's career, to hurt her husband for telling the truth.

Ha-ha, laughed the reporters.

Meanwhile, new evidence is emerging that Rove was directly involved in the firing of Federal prosecutors. That directly contradicts what this same Administration told this same group of correspondents.

David Gregory's a fine reporter, but his uncomfortable routine doesn't just illustrate the impropriety of joking around with people who may have committed serious crimes. It also demonstrates how inappropriate it is to hold these events with an Administration that deceived a nation into war - a deception that was enabled in large part by the same chatty familiarity being displayed at tonight's dinner.

Here's the bottom line: The widespread loss of life in Iraq is due in no small part to the slipshod workmanship of many of the journalists at this event, and their coziness with the those now in power. Displaying that coziness while our fighting men and women are still dying over there is in bad taste. (And let's not forget the loss of innocent Iraqi lives, either.)

I know I wrote recently about Tony Snow's illness and the need for reconciliation. I meant it. We can wish them the best as individuals and still oppose misdeeds and deception.

And where crimes are committed, we can wish for justice to be served. Justice must prevail before reconciliation can begin. And as I wrote then, reconciliation involves an honest admission of one's own mistakes. There was none of that in evidence tonight, either from the Administration or the reporters.

Later, President Bush "made a funny" about the firing of Federal prosecutors - firings that may involve multiple felonies (including obstruction of justice, giving false testimony, and misleading another to give false testimony.)

"You know you've really botched things when you have people siding with lawyers," said the President.

Ha-ha, said the reporters.

My advice for David Gregory, who seems like a really good guy, is this: Next time you're asked, just say "Thanks, but I think I'll sit this one out."

Joking about the Administration's proven (as with Libby) or suspected criminal behavior is highly inappropriate, especially since the media's job is to investigate that behavior.

You don't kid around with people you're supposing to be probing for felonies and malfeasance. You especially don't kid around about the potential felonies themselves - certainly not on the very day that new emails and other information about them is becoming available for your review. Maybe that's one reason why these routines were so horribly unfunny.

In comedy, timing is everything.

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