As federal office-holders, members of the legislative and executive branch get sworn in with an oath to defend the constitution. But as politicians they take another oath entirely, one I call the Hypocritic Oath: Remember nothing harmful.
If Patrick Fitzgerald brings charges against Karl Rove or Lewis I. “Scooter” Libby, we could see the oath in action once again.
I had an instructive email exchange over the weekend with a conservative friend about the Valerie Plame case. My friend first floated the canard that no crime was committed because Plame wasn’t actually under cover and then went on to suggest that “the only thing that Rove could have been dumb enough to do is perjury in front of the grand jury if he got his ‘story’ mixed up.”
Of course the notion of Rove getting indicted for perjury is delicious not for partisan reasons (though of course there are those too) but rather for anyone who enjoys shameless, straight-faced demonstrations of the Hypocritic Oath. Recall (because the pols won’t) the Clinton impeachment – the GOP said that the fact that it didn’t focus on sex but rather perjury and on the rule of law. Clinton lied under oath, they argued, and therefore had to be removed from office.
How many GOPers will see it the same way this time around? (Not being a pol, my conservative friend was not oath-bound: “If Rove commits a felony, just like Clinton, he should go to the clink,” he said.)
On the flip side, how many Democrats will now snatch up the fallen Republican talking points and crow about the importance of the rule of law and the gravity of lying to a Grand Jury? (Though they have a bit more wiggle room here to argue that there’s a qualitative difference between lying about sex and lying about national security.)
The Washington Post’s excellent E.J. Dionne summarizes the whole thing very nicely in his column today:
This case goes to the heart of how Republicans recaptured power after the Clinton presidency and how they have held on to it since. The strategy involved attacking their adversaries without pity. In the Clinton years, the attacks married a legal strategy to a political strategy.
He goes on to note:
These cases portray an administration and a movement that can dish it out, but want to evade responsibility for doing so and can't take it when they are subjected to the same rule book that inconvenienced an earlier president. An editorial in the latest issue of the conservative Weekly Standard is a sign of arguments to come. The editorial complains about the various accusations being leveled against DeLay, Libby, Rove and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, and it says that "a comprehensive strategy of criminalization had been implemented to inflict defeat on conservatives who seek to govern as conservatives."
I have great respect for my friends at the Weekly Standard, so I think they'll understand my surprise and wonder over this new conservative concern for the criminalization of politics. A process that was about "the rule of law" when Democrats were in power is suddenly an outrage now that it's Republicans who are being held accountble.
Amen, brother Dionne.