In the grand tradition of politicians begging for forgiveness after getting caught criticizing Rush Limbaugh, Karl Rove has now backpedaled on his criticism of Delaware Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell, which kicked off a firestorm in the right-wing media. Appearing on Fox News today, Rove insisted that, despite her need to honestly answer questions about her past, he was “one of the first” to endorse O'Donnell and that he is “for the Republican in each and every case.”

But that's not the most astonishing thing he said.

That would be his interpretation of his role as a Fox News pundit:

My job as a Fox analyst is to give the best insights. ... My job as a Fox analyst is to call it as I see them. My job is not to be a cheerleader for every Republican, it's to call it as I see them. Now, I've got a different role outside my Fox role, and that's where I'm helping raise $50 million to elect Republicans to the Senate. But when I come on Fox, you and your viewers expect me to shoot straight with you ... and that's what I was doing that night.

Really? Does anybody really believe that the goal of Rove's appearances on Fox is to “shoot straight,” instead of spinning for right-wing causes and attacking the Obama administration?

Indeed, Rove's record as a “Fox analyst” is pock-marked with shooting that's anything but straight. Here's but a sample, as documented by Media Matters:

• Is Karl Rove forgetting that GM, Chrysler did go through bankruptcy?

• Rove falsely claims Biden's stimulus numbers “don't match up”

• Karl Rove's punditry: Where facts go to die

• Karl Rove doesn't shoot straight in addressing Obama's oil spill response

• Rove continues to mislead on CBO's health care estimate

• Rove, Fox News morph uncontroversial proposal into government spying on “everybody's checking accounts”

• Rove's nuclear fallout: false and dubious evidence to support claim that nuclear review will “undermine our strength”

• Rove rehashes tired claim that health care bill “only appears to be affordable on paper”

• Rove blatantly misrepresents Obama's comments about tea party participants

• Rove falsely claims “no Republican” supports repealing aid to small businesses in health care reform

• Quick Fact: Rove falsely claims Dems are “changing the rules midstream” by using reconciliation

• An O'Reilly Factor hat trick: Rove, Morris, and Schoen repeat falsehoods on the eve of health care summit

• Rove shelters Bush from any responsibility for 2009 increase in deficit

Further, doesn't Rove's quick endorsement of O'Donnell despite his expressed misgivings about the way she has addressed less-than-flattering events in her past suggest that he is, despite his claim to the contrary, “a cheerleader for every Republican”? Hasn't he just put party above principle by doing this?

His blather about how his fundraising role is separate from his pundit role is bogus as well. In this Fox appearance, he states that his group has already spent $3 million on behalf of Sharron Angle -- a candidate he has touted in a previous Fox News appearance.

Will Rove refuse to shill on Fox for Republican candidates his group is raising $50 million for? Unlikely. If he does shill for them, will he disclose that conflict of interest? So far, he hasn't.

Nobody -- nobody -- expects Rove to “shoot straight” when he appears on Fox News. And as the firestorm over his remarks on O'Donnell prove, his conservative allies clearly don't want him to start doing so now.