Today's dose of NIF - News, Interesting & Funny ... a simple Wednesday edition (+ open trackbacks)

When they cannot prove a crime in Washington, they prove a cover-up. And if someone complains, they cry hypocrisy. And so Howard Kurtz of CNN crying hypocrisy. His target, Kay Bailey Hutchison.

The difference today, with modern punditry, is that people simply name things (true or false) as fast as they can, and very rarely back up for a correction.

Bottome line - yes there are many truths, but if you are going to cliam the higher ground, give me one of those truths, and not a lie.

The general public support for Clinton, I think, came from a down-home sense that lyin' about cheatin', in an investigation supposedly dealing with something entirely different, was an excusable failing. Possibly even one that we might have committed ourselves (assuming the underlying sin). You could identify with Clinton, in other words.

It will be difficult, tho not impossible, for the same reaction to arise from the Plame case. Hence the groundwork ("Joe Wilson's a liar," etc.) to prepare public opinion in case of indictments.

In the event of indictments, underlying offense charged or not, I expect yet another partisan divide. There are no facts any more, only interpretations, as Nietzsche observed.

Conservative activists intensified their opposition to the Supreme Court nomination of Harriet Miers

Whatever.

I'm only in it for what it will tell me about the origins of this war. If it was a criminal "cabal" that's bad, but if it was organized (but legal) blunder that's bad too - and perhaps harder to deal with.

Starr's scope continued to expand because the scandals kept unfolding and they were added to his portfolio by Janet Reno and company because it would have made little sense to have numerous separate investigations.

Clinton was impeached for a crime, an Arkansas judge that HE APPOINTED later found that he had committed a crime, etc.

The contrasts between Starr and Fitzgerald make that assertion ludicrous. Starr may be a fine man, but his actions were despicable, and his actions are all that I can use to judge him.

Kenneth Starr spent $65M and could not even identify a crime that had been committed in the Whitewater affair. The best he could do was to feed the Jones lawyers an irrelevant question about a legal act that elicited a duplicitous reply from the president while he was under oath. This is the "perjury trap" that the GOP is suddenly incensed about as though there were no difference between an irrelevant untruth about a legal act and lies about who used classified information to ruin the life of a career agent.

The Starr investigation leaked like Niagara Falls, in contrast to Fitzgerald. Unless this "fine man" had no control over his investigation, then he is personally responsible for the leaks which were used against the president.

Has George W. Bush been asked to testify under oath, so the same penalties would apply to him that applied to Clinton? Well, he has been asked, but he refuses, so right there the difference is stark. Why do you suppose Bush is so reluctant to take responsibility for telling the truth?

Give me GWB under oath and I'll get you a perjury rap in two minutes.

The CIA says that a crime has been committed in the exposure of Plame, and they asked for an investigation. Three years and $65M of investigation couldn't identify a crime in Whitewater.

How big does the print have to be for you to see the difference?