On Sunday I slogged about what Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison had to say regarding the coming Plamgate indictments—please God, let their be lots of ‘em—on Meet the Press. She said, basically, that perjury wasn’t a crime, or a serious enough crime, to merit prosecution. Kay said:

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.

Then I reminded you all how the Republicans circa-1998 said it wasn’t so much the blowjob that got Bill in trouble (who could be opposed to blowjobs?), it was the lying about the blowjob—a.k.a. the perjury. That was the impeachable offense, the Rs said then. A perjury technicality was the reason Bill Clinton just had to be removed from office.

Of course there was debate then about whether or not perjury rose to the level of an impeachable offense, i.e. whether it was a high crime and/or misdemeanor, the constitutional benchmark for impeachment. Many Republicans went on the record saying it was, and I thought about investing an hour or two Googling around looking for relevant quotes, i.e. quotes that would show up the Rs for being hypocritical assholes. The rules don’t apply to them, you see, and behavior they’ll point to when they wanna impeach a Democratic president they’ll excuse in a Republican aide to a Republican president.

Anyway, I was too lazy to look up the quotes but the DSCC wasn’t. These treats come to you via Kos, and if any of your Republican friends or co-workers attempt to excuse what Libby, Rove, and Cheney did by waving off perjury, print this out and read it to `em.

Sen. Frist: “There is no serious question that perjury and obstruction of justice are high crimes and misdemeanors…Indeed, our own Senate precedent establishes that perjury is a high crime and misdemeanor…The crimes of perjury and obstruction of justice are public crimes threatening the administration of justice.” [Congressional Record, 2/12/99]

Sen. Kyl: “…there can be no doubt that perjurious, false, and misleading statements made under oath in federal court proceedings are indeed impeachable offenses…John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the United States, said `there is no crime more extensively pernicious to society’ than perjury, precisely because it `discolors and poisons the streams of justice.’” [Congressional Record, 2/12/99]

Sen. DeWine: “Obstruction of justice and perjury strike at the very heart of our system of justice…Perjury is also a very serious crime…The judiciary is designed to be a mechanism for finding the truth-so that justice can be done. Perjury perverts the judiciary, turning it into a mechanism that accepts lies-so that injustice may prevail.” [Congressional Record, 2/12/99]

Sen. Talent: “Nobody else in a position of trust, not a CEO, not a labor union leader, not a principal of a school could do half of what the president has done and stay in office. I mean, who would have said a year ago that a president could perjure himself and obstruct justice and tamper with witnesses… and stay in office.” [CNBC, “Hardball,” 12/19/98]

Sen. McConnell: “I am completely and utterly perplexed by those who argue that perjury and obstruction of justice are not high crimes and misdemeanors…Perjury and obstruction hammer away at the twin pillars of our legal system: truth and justice.” [Congressional Record, 2/12/99]

Sen. Voinovich: “As constitutional scholar Charles Cooper said, `The crimes of perjury and obstruction of justice, like the crimes of treason and bribery, are quintessentially offenses against our system of government, visiting injury immediately on society itself.’” [Congressional Record, 2/12/99]

Sen. Hutchison: “The reason that I voted to remove him from office is because I think the overridding issue here is that truth will remain the standard for perjury and obstruction of justice in our criminal justice system and it must not be gray. It must not be muddy.” [AP, 2/12/99]

Sen. Craig: “There is no question in my mind that perjury and obstruction of justice are the kind of public crimes that the Founders had in mind, and the House managers have demonstrated these crimes were committed by the president. As for the excuses being desperately sought by some to allow President Clinton to escape accountability, it seems to me that creating such loopholes would require tearing holes in the Constitution-something that cannot be justified to protect this president, or any president.” [Congressional Record, 2/12/99]

Sen. Brownback: “Perjury and obstruction of justice are crimes against the state. Perjury goes directly against the truth-finding function of the judicial branch of government.” [Congressional Record, 2/12/99]

So Hutchison was against perjury before she was for it. See how that works? Your guy lies about a blowjob under oath, and he’s a crook. Our guys out a covert CIA operative working on Wearpons of Mass Destruction during a war ostensibly being waged to stop the spread of WMD in order to smear her husband and then they lie about it under oath and they’re not really crooks. They’re just victims of a self-conscious prosecutor who needed “something to showâ€� for his two year investigation. Puh-leeze.