When The Shoe Was On The Other Foot

It is interesting to watch some dogged supporters of the Bush administration lying, spinning and singing a different tune, now that one, two or even three of their own may be facing perjury or more serious charges for their role in leaking the identity of  the  undercover CIA agent, Valerie Plame. Carnival barkers on the right, such as Rush Limbaugh and  Sean Hannity have a simple answer - Joe Wilson himself exposed his wife's secret identity! Partisan Republican lawyers like Victoria Toensing  use falsehoods and legal mumbo-jumbo to discredit  Patrick Fitzgerald's efforts to get to the bottom of the sordid conspiracy.  Senator Kay Baily Hutchison, The Gentlelady from Texas, came up with the pathetic Martha Stewart defense - the crime may not  have been serious enough to prosecute. It took her only seven short years to make a 180 degrees turnaround from the Clinton days.   Here she is in her own words - then and now.

Clinton impeachment era:

The edifice of American jurisprudence rests on the foundation of the due process of law. The mortar in that foundation is the oath. Those who seek to obstruct justice weaken that foundation, and those who violate the oath would tear the whole structure down.

Every day, thousands of citizens in thousands of courtrooms across America are sworn in as jurors, as grand jurors, as witnesses, as defendants. On those oaths rest the due process of law upon which all of our other rights are based.

The oath is how we defend ourselves against those who would subvert our system by breaking our laws. There are Americans in jail today because they violated that oath. Others have prevailed at the bar of justice because of that oath.

What would we be telling Americans -- and those worldwide who see in America what they can only hope for in their own countries -- if the Senate of the United States were to conclude: The President lied under oath as an element of a scheme to obstruct the due process of law, but we chose to look the other way?

I cannot make that choice. I cannot look away. I vote `Guilty' on Article I, Perjury. I vote `Guilty' on Article II, Obstruction of Justice.

I ask unanimous consent an analysis of the Articles of Impeachment be printed in the Record.

http://www.ameriroots.com/impeachment/senator_hutchison...

Karl Rove, Scooter Libby (Dick Cheney?) era:

I certainly hope that if there is going to be an indictment that says something happened, that it is an indictment on a crime and not some perjury technicality where they couldn’t indict on the crime so they go to something just to show that their two years of investigation were not a waste of time and dollars.

http://thinkprogress.org/2005/10/23/hutchinson-technica...

Comments

[carey allen]

As sleazy as the Clinton-Lewinsky affair was, it was consensual sex between two adults, followed by Clinton's stupid attempt at obfuscation re the definition of 'sex'. The outing of Plame, however, was in itself an illegal act, tantamount to treason in a time of war (using the administration's own characterization). Many of the very same people who screamed until their larynx bled re Clinton's peccadillo now seem to think that a cynically choreographed attempt at retribution which involved breaking federal laws is somehow excusable. Surely this is a low point, even for political whores.

[Ruchira Paul]

You are exactly right. Read what Maureen Dowd has to say on this matter of hypocrisy. As usual, she is right on the money.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/102605M.shtml