Chris Wallace Confronts Rove: Didn’t Bush Take a Lot of Executive Action Too?

Chris Wallace Confronts Rove: Didn’t Bush Take a Lot of Executive Action Too? (Mediaite)

Chris Wallace put a House Democrat in the hot seat today over President Obama‘s use of executive actions, but he also grilled Karl Rove over executive actions taken by George W. Bush during his eight years in office and questioned Rove on whether Obama’s really that much worse than Bush was.

Wallace told Rove, “I think it’s fair to say you worked at a White House that took a pretty expansive view of executive powers, whether it was signing statements by President Bush when he was signing bills into law or the way that he waged the war on terror.”

Rove responded that presidents have broad authority “in waging war,” but what Obama’s doing is not faithfully executing the laws of the country. And in addition, Rove said the Bush administration always looked for a “statutory basis” to take executive action whereas, he charged, the Obama administration is just doing whatever they want.