This year’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner was a bit less controversial than last year’s, but it wasn’t without incident either. Apparently, Sheryl Crow and Laurie David got into it with Karl Rove over global warming. Here is the Crow/David account on Huffington Post.

According to both accounts, Crow and David found themselves in the same room with Karl Rove at the Correspondents’ Dinner and decided they could change his mind about global warming. They say in their post that they “were introduced” to Mr. Rove, but they don’t say how that event played out. I’m no Karl Rove fan by any means. I think he has done as much to damage this country as Mr. Bush himself. However, my guess (and this is nothing more than a guess) is that Ms. Crow and Ms. David saw an opportunity to hound a high-ranking associate of the White House regarding one of their key issues, and they took it. When Mr. Rove turned away to return to his seat, Ms. Crow reportedly “touched his arm” and he shot back, “don’t touch me.” Ms. Crow answered that “he worked for her.”

Comments on the Huffington Post blog are all positive toward Ms. Crow and Ms. David, so I am definitely in the minority here, but I think the two of them were somewhat deluded if they thought they were going to change the mind of Karl Rove (Ms. David said she thought she could really change his mind), and hounding him at a social dinner certainly wasn’t going to help their case. Also, just because Rove works for us doesn’t mean any of us has the right to grab his arm (or “touch” his arm).

I just think there is a time and place for everything, and for some reason, this story in particular struck me as an example of how not to pursue your agenda. I realize Ms. Crow and Ms. David probably thought this was an opportunity too good to let pass, but did they really think they would change Rove’s mind? Or did they just see an opportunity to badger one of the most hated figures in Democratic circles? I’m all for badgering evil people, but don’t pretend you’re doing it to further a cause.