The latest Republican spin on the Valerie Plame affair and the Tom DeLay indictment: These aren't "crimes," they're technicalities.
Watch Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson make this point on Meet the Press.
Bill Kristol was making similarly pathetic statements on Fox News Sunday..
and...
The answer to all of this crap is easy: Yes, these are crimes, and they're very serious ones. Perjury? Obstruction of justice? Funneling corporate money into state races? Crime, crime, crime.
At least Tim Russert had the presence of mind to point out to Senator Hutchinson that Republicans didn't seem to be so against these kinds of things in the Clinton years. In fact, Hutchinson herself had some interesting thoughts on the matter back then.
The key thing to understand here is that criminals in positions of high power are often eventually brought down by what seem to be "minor" charges, even when everyone knows damn well they committed much more serious crimes. See, powerful people are hard to catch. They know how to cover their tracks, and they can wield enormous influence upon others to cover for them. They're not stupid, but smart criminals are criminals nonetheless.
The law is the law, and if these people are found guilty of breaking the law, they should be punished. Arguing that no one would reasonably pursue these "technicalities" absent some political agenda is irrelevant. You can't take a piss in Washington absent some political agenda.
In the end, this kind of spin is a desperation move. Keep it up, jerks.
(And yes, this is different than the Democrats complaints over the Starr investigation in one very important way. Outing a CIA agent in a time of war or manipulating campaign money to take over the legislature of the second largest state in the union are exponentially more serious than lying about blowjobs. It's not a witch-hunt when the crimes make a difference. It's justice.)
