A March 22 New York Times "White House Memo" by reporter Sheryl Gay Stolberg suggested that only Democrats raised objections to the conditions under which President Bush has “offered” to make White House senior adviser Karl Rove and other White House aides available to speak with members of Congress about the controversy over the firing of several U.S. attorneys. The article said Bush's conditions for testimony -- “only in private, without transcripts, and not under oath” -- were “not acceptable to Democrats,” and added that Republicans have “lined up behind the president on the testimony issue,” citing this as evidence that the issue had “seemed to turn” into a “partisan battle.” However, the article made no mention that two Republican senators have declared their support for the public testimony of White House aides on this issue. As Media Matters for America noted, on the March 21 edition of CNN's The Situation Room, CNN congressional correspondent Dana Bash reported that Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) said that “if there is going to be information provided, it best be provided in public.” And Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) said, “It would be very helpful to have a transcript. My own preference would be to have it open, so that people see what is going on.”

From the March 22 "White House Memo" in The New York Times:

Ever since Republicans lost control of Congress, President Bush has known a fight like this could come.

The battle over the Congressional inquiry into the dismissal of federal prosecutors is not one of Mr. Bush's choosing. But now that it has been thrust upon him, Mr. Bush is defiantly refusing to allow Karl Rove and other top aides to testify publicly and under oath, as Democrats are demanding. And he is standing by Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, despite calls for Mr. Gonzales to quit.

In doing so, the president is sending a message to the new Democratic majority on Capitol Hill: He may be a lame duck and his poll numbers may be down, but he will protect those closest to him, defend his presidential powers and run his White House the way he sees fit in his remaining 22 months in office.

“George W. Bush will rue the day if he lets Al Gonzales go,” said Ari Fleischer, Mr. Bush's former press secretary, “because that will be the first scalp that the Democrats on the Hill will gather and collect, and then the door will then be opened to show that if you can put enough pressure on President Bush, anybody can go. This is a crucial first test.”

[. . .]

Mr. Bush has offered to let Mr. Rove and three other officials, including Harriet E. Miers, the former White House counsel, be interviewed by lawmakers, but only in private, without transcripts, and not under oath -- conditions that are not acceptable to Democrats. A House Judiciary subcommittee authorized subpoenas on Wednesday, bringing the confrontation one step closer to the courts.

[...]

On Tuesday night, Mr. Bush cast the issue as a partisan battle, and by Wednesday, it seemed to turn it into one. Republicans, some of whom had been openly critical of Mr. Gonzales, lined up behind the president on the testimony issue.

The president is all the more passionate about this particular fight because of the men at the center of it: Mr. Rove and Mr. Gonzales. Both have been part of the president's inner circle since his days as the governor of Texas. When Mr. Bush recently had a rare dinner out, he went to Mr. Rove's house, where the man who has been called “Bush's Brain” served game from a recent hunting trip.