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Many Conservatives are mystified by the "Bush lied" Liberal hysteria. We can't imagine what's gotten into them. Surely they know that at worst he was mistaken, and there's a big difference between being mistaken, and lying.
But the Libs had seen Democrat President Clinton impeached for lying -- and for lying about something that wasn't a crime in the first place -- reprehensible though it surely was - i.e. having sex with an intern in the Oval Office.
There can be little doubt that the impeachment of a sitting President for lying about a non-crime, was a contributing factor to the hysteria of the Left.
In a series of posts beginning in May of 2004, I've examined the evolution of the political strategy of using the legal system to attack the Presidency:
- Abu-Ghraib… and Monica Lewinsky
- We're Following Nixon's Lead (and What to Do About It)
- Impeachment Threats, From the Left or From the Right: The Most Dangerous Trend in U.S. Politics
- The Most Dangerous Trend in U.S. Politics: Use of the Legal System to Attack a Sitting President
- Kafkaesque: The Libby Conviction- Republicans Are as Much to Blame as Dems - And What to Do About It
It's a strategy that in modern times originated in the Nixon Presidency -- and, per my previous posts, I hold Nixon, and not the Dems, accountable for that. I consider him to have what the Greeks might have called a tragic character flaw.
In the case of Nixon, there was an underlying crime -- the Watergate break-in. Today the strategy has evolved to the point that the need for even an underlying crime can be dispensed with. Per Newsweek's article this week:
After all, Justice Department and FBI investigators had already learned before Fitzgerald took over in late 2003 that the much-publicized matter under investigation—the leaking to the media of CIA agent Valerie Plame’s identity—was no crime, or at least not a serious one. This was clear to investigators early on from the facts that Plame was not very “covert” and that her name had not been leaked for the purpose of blowing her cover. Nor did the leak even originate in the Bush White House, as had been universally assumed.
The original leak to columnist Robert Novak, who first published the Plame-CIA connection on July 14, 2003, came from gossipy then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, a critic of Bush’s Iraq war, as NEWSWEEK’s Michael Isikoff and The Nation's David Corn first reported last year in their book “Hubris.”
So the hysteria of the Left becomes somewhat less mystifying in this light. As I posted yesterday:
For the safety of both parties, and of all Americans, Congress should consider passing a law severely limiting the maximum sentence for perjury and obstruction of justice, in cases where there is no underlying crime.
