It is immensely satisfying, when someone who (like Kay Bailey Hutchison, for example) says
if there were an indictment, she hoped it would be for "a crime and not some perjury technicality where they couldn't indict on the crime."then turns out to have said, when Clinton was the target, that
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.(via Wampum).
Let's keep in mind, though, that (as is so often the case) 'hypocrisy' is a double-edged sword: if (say) Rove is charged with perjury or obstruction and nothing else, anyone gloating over it is going to be hit with accusations of hypocrisy. After all, we minimized perjury when Clinton was charged with it; how can we turn around and say it's a big deal when the defendant is Rove, or Libby, or Cheney?
The answer, of course, is that the seriousness of lying under oath depends entirely on what it is you're lying about. The obvious common-sense standard would be: is the underlying matter worthy of investigation in its own right?
No one can argue with a straight face that engaging in a consensual affair meets this standard. The wingnuts conceded this with their talking point that it wasn't about sex, it was about lying under oath--a concession that the sex itself, however sleazy or distasteful or hurtful to Clinton's loved ones (and we know the wingnuts have always been terribly concerned about their well-being), was not a prosecutable offense.
Outing Valerie Plame is another matter entirely. The CIA clearly believed there was a potential crime there, or they wouldn't have referred it to the DOJ. The judges who ruled on Miller and Cooper's cases clearly believed there was at least a potential crime. This was a serious investigation into serious crimes, and that in itself--not just the ultimate resolution of the underlying issues--makes perjury and obstruction serious crimes in this case.
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