The White House Talking Points

Daniel Froomkin, in his column in the Washington Post, brings us news about the rhetorical ack-ack that is being fired in anticipation of indictments from the Fitzgerald grand jury.

Stevenson and Johnston write in the New York Times: "With a decision expected this week on possible indictments in the C.I.A. leak case, allies of the White House suggested Sunday that they intended to pursue a strategy of attacking any criminal charges as a disagreement over legal technicalities or the product of an overzealous prosecutor."

Those White House allies "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. 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.

"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."

The "technicality" talking point was first uttered in public yesterday by Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, appearing on NBC's "Meet the Press" with Tim Russert .

"HUTCHINSON: I certainly hope that if there is going to be an indictment . . . that 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. So they go to something that trips someone up because they said something in the first grand jury and then maybe they found new information or they forgot something and they tried to correct that in a second grand jury. . . .

"MR. RUSSERT: But the fact is perjury or obstruction of justice is a very serious crime and Republicans certainly thought so when charges were placed against Bill Clinton before the United States Senate. Senator Hutchison.

"SEN. HUTCHISON: Well, there were charges against Bill Clinton besides perjury and obstruction of justice. And I'm not saying that those are not crimes. . . . I think that it is important, of course, that we have a perjury and an obstruction of justice crime, but I also think we are seeing grand juries and U.S. attorneys and district attorneys that go for technicalities, sort of a gotcha mentality in this country."

For the record, there were two articles of impeachment against Clinton: One for perjury, one for obstruction of justice. No other charges. Hutchison, like most Senate Republicans voted "guilty" on both of them. And in a statement, she explained her vote this way: "If only the President had followed the simple, high moral principle handed to us by our Nation's first leader as a child and had said early in this episode 'I cannot tell a lie,' we would not be here today."

As Lt. Col. Bill Kilgore might say, "I love the smell of hypocrisy in the morning..."

A variant of the "technicality" spin that is also poking out in places is to blur the distinction between prosecution for a crime and the existence of a crime. If you watch sharply, I believe you'll see the suggestion that no crimes were actually committed, beyond these "technicality" crimes of perjury or obstruction.

It's a bit like arguing that Al Capone's Chicago was crime-free, because all they charged him with was tax evasion. There are lots of crimes that happen, and get investigated, and then never prosecuted, for many reasons. But the victims are just as dead, the life just as ruined, or in this case, the national security just as damaged. It's a logical fallacy to assert that, if no charges get filed, no illegal acts happened.

Sure, it'll be fun for a while watching the same loyal troops that were tearing down Clinton a few years ago taking the exact opposite stand now. But just remember Al Capone, next time you hear one of them talking about technicalities and overzealous prosecutors.