House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Judiciary chair Pat Leahy just released separate statements on the agreement to secure Karl Rove's testimony.

Pelosi:

The agreement for Karl Rove and Harriet Miers to testify upholds a fundamental principle: no one is above the law and Congressional subpoenas must be complied with.

As public officials, we take an oath of office to uphold the Constitution. It is the institutional duty of Congress -- as an independent branch -- to ensure against abuse of power through meaningful oversight over the Executive Branch. When there are credible allegations about the politicization of law enforcement, the need for Congressional oversight is at its greatest.

In upholding our oaths of office, the House of Representatives was determined to preserve checks and balances -- the separation of powers that protects the rule of law. It brought action in court to enforce the Judiciary Committee's subpoenas, and won a major ruling by U.S. District Judge John Bates dismissing the extreme position of absolute immunity from Congressional oversight advocated by the Bush Administration for former Administration officials. Under this agreement, the precedent established by Judge Bates' historic ruling rejecting this extreme Bush Administration doctrine will be preserved.

Today's agreement is a great victory for the Constitution, the rule of law, and the separation of powers. I appreciate the strong leadership of Chairman John Conyers and the assistance of the Obama Administration.

Congress now has the opportunity to uncover the truth and determine whether improper criteria were used by the Bush Administration to dismiss and retain U.S. Attorneys.

Leahy:

I hope today's agreement will help to finally uncover the truth about the firings of U.S. Attorneys and the Bush White House cover up designed to shield from public view the inappropriate and illegal actions of the last administration.

It should not have taken until now to obtain testimony and documents from Bush administration officials connected to the investigation into the firings. Today's agreement leaves in place the court ruling that rejected the Bush administration's unprecedented and unfounded blanket claims of executive privilege and immunity. I rejected those claims as excessive and wrong in my ruling on President Bush's position over a year ago, and a bipartisan majority of the Senate Judiciary Committee ultimately found Karl Rove and former White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten in criminal contempt.

I commend Chairman Conyers for the agreement reached today. I hope Congress, and the American people, will now finally hear long overdue answers to serious questions about political interference by the Bush White House in our nation's top law enforcement agency.

GOP senators Arlen Specter and John Cornyn are leaving no doubt where they stand on Senate Judiciary chair Pat Leahy's proposal to create a Truth Commission to look into the Bush administration's war on terror policies.

They oppose it.

In a press release the pair sent out, Specter said:

When this idea of the so-called 'truth commission' first surfaced I said it was unnecessary because you had a change of administration, you could walk in the front door, ask for directions to the relevant filing cabinet, go in and open the drawer and find out anything you wanted to know. Well that's been done. And it's being done to a greater extent. You had some rather startling disclosures with the publicity in recent days about the unusual, to put it mildly, legal opinions which were issued to justify executive action.

Cornyn added:

I oppose the creation of a so-called 'truth commission' because it is a redundant and politically divisive exercise that would distract the Executive, Congress, and the American people at a time when we should be focused on reinvigorating our economy and winning the war on terror. This roving, unaccountable inquisition into each and every grievance with a Bush Administration policy is a backward-looking proposition that is directly at odds with President Obama's stated goals of unity and moving forward. Now is not the time for government to waste more of taxpayers' money by outsourcing a core Congressional responsibility.

It appears these senators can't handle the truth.

The Senate Judiciary committee is currently holding hearings on that proposal from committee chair Pat Leahy to set up a Truth Commission to look into the Bush administration's war on terror.

We'll have more to say on this whole subject soon, but for now it's worth noting that, as you'd expect, Bush allies are fighting hard to stymie Leahy's idea.

Just now, the committee heard from David Rivkin, a lawyer who served in the Justice Department and the White House under Presidents Reagan and George H. W. Bush.

Explaining why he opposed Leahy's proposal, Rivkin declared:

Yes, mistakes were made. Yes, some bad things happened. But compared with the historical baseline of past wars, the conduct of the United States in the past eight years ... has been exemplary.

We're sure that victims of torture under the Bush administration would appreciate Rivkin's willingness to supply that historical context.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) certainly didn't. He told Rivkin:

I would suggest, Mr. Rivkin, that until you know, and we all know, what was done under the Bush administration, you not be so quick to throw other generations of Americans under the bus, and assume that they did worse.

Late Update: Here's the video: