Republicans Testing Ways to Blunt Leak Charges
By RICHARD W. STEVENSON and DAVID JOHNSTON
...allies of the White House have quietly been circulating talking points in recent days among Republicans sympathetic to the administration, seeking to help them make the case that bringing charges like perjury mean the prosecutor does not have a strong case, one Republican with close ties to the White House said Sunday.
Doesn't mean there was no crime.
Other people sympathetic to Mr. Rove and Mr. Libby have said that indicting them would amount to criminalizing politics and that Mr. Fitzgerald did not understand how Washington works.
If a crime was committed, THAT was what "criminalized politics." Perjury is a crime. Obstruction of justice is a crime.
Some Republicans have also been reprising a theme that was often sounded by Democrats during the investigations into President Bill Clinton, that special prosecutors and independent counsels lack accountability and too often pursue cases until they find someone to charge.
That's pretty shameless...
Congressional Republicans have also been...seeking to cast the leak case as an inside-the-Beltway phenomenon of little interest to most voters.
That was David Brooks all weekend, too.
As I see it, pre-positioning all these excuses means
- they know there was at least one crime
- they are in on the cover-up conspiracy
That's all.
