DEFINING DISHONESTY DOWNWARD: You and I have something in common. Neither of us knows what if anything Patrick Fitzgerald will decide to do about Rove and Libby. Speculation is cheap. What I find more interesting is the preemptive spinning from many conservatives, to the effect that perjury may not be terribly important if the lying concerned non-criminal events. Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison steps out front with this:

Hutchison hopes that if there is an indictment, "it is an indictment on a crime and not some perjury technicality where they couldn't indict on the crime and so they go to something just to show that their two years of investigation was not a waste of time and taxpayer dollars."

Reminds me of what Democrats were saying about Bill Clinton: Perjury doesn't count when it's about sex. Conservatives refused to buy that self-serving logic then, and they should do they same now. Let me reiterate: It's not at all clear what the prosecutor will or won't do. If and when he decides to hand up indictments, there will be plenty of time to compare the administrations of Clinton and Bush 2. For now, simply on principle, the Hutchison line of preemptive defense should be offensive to anyone and everyone who took Bill Clinton and his supporters to task for excusing lying under oath.