Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) went on Meet the Press this past Sunday to disseminate the new Republican talking points: Democrats are "criminalizing politics" with their attempts to prosecute people for crimes. What?! Prosecute people for committing crimes! In what kind of backwards Arab society do that do that?!

Most startling, hypocritical, and stupid were Sen. Hutchison's comments regarding RoveLibbyCheneyNovakWilsonPlameCooperGate:

SEN. HUTCHISON: Tim, you know, I think we have to remember something here. An indictment of any kind is not a guilty verdict, and I do think we have in this country the right to go to court and have due process and be innocent until proven guilty. And secondly, I certainly hope that if there is going to be an indictment that says something happened, 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.

I think we should be very careful here, especially as we are dealing with something very public and people's lives in the public arena. I do not think we should prejudge. I think it is unfair to drag people through the newspapers week after week after week, and let's just see what the charges are. Let's tone down the rhetoric and let's make sure that if there are indictments that we don't prejudge.

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. They are. But I also think that we are seeing in the judicial process--and look at Martha Stewart, for instance, where they couldn't find a crime and they indict on something that she said about something that wasn't a crime. 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. And I think we have to weigh both sides of this issue very carefully and not just jump to conclusions, because someone is in the public arena, that they are guilty without being able to put their case forward. I really object to that.

In case you're shocked by Sen. Hutchison's outrageous comments, let me explicate them for you. In the first paragraph, Hutchison calls perjury a "technicality" that is leveled against people when "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." Does that sound like anyone we know? Let's see, here: two years of investigation, no solid evidence of a real crime being committed, so they indict on perjury. Seems to me like ... oh, geez, what was his name?

Oh, yes. Bill Clinton. That's right, kids. When Bill Clinton committed perjury, it was a "high crime" and "misdemeanor" enough to get him impeached. When Karl Rove is indicted for perjury, it's a "technicality" because they're just trying to get him. No, wait. It gets better. Bill Clinton lied about oral sex. Karl Rove lied about national security. If I were an evangelical Protestant, I would have to say ... yup, the oral sex is definitely more threatening to the nation than endangering national security. Come to think of it, I don't understand why they didn't execute Bill Clinton for having an illicit relationship outside the holy bonds of marriage. (They didn't execute Republican congressman Henry Hyde, either, but that's because they're hypocrites.)

But Sen. Hutchison says that Bill Clinton's case was different; he had other charges brought against him, charges that were substantive and not mere "technicalities" like perjury and obstruction of justice. The House of Representatives approved four articles of impeachment against Bill Clinton in 1998:

1. The president provided perjurious, false and misleading testimony to the grand jury regarding the Paula Jones case and his relationship with Monica Lewinsky. [Perjury]
2. The president provided perjurious, false and misleading testimony in the Jones case in his answers to written questions and in his deposition. [Perjury]
3. The president obstructed justice in an effort to delay, impede, cover up and conceal the existence of evidence related to the Jones case. [Obstruction of justice]
4. The president misused and abused his office by making perjurious, false and misleading statements to Congress. [Abuse of power?]

You know, Hutch, you're right. Bill Clinton's case is different because they added another "technicality" indictment to the already extant technicality indictments of perjury and obstruction of justice. So, it seems to me that what Hutch here is doing is trying to justify the Republicans' ridiculous persecution of Bill Clinton for perjury while at the same time suggesting that it was okay for Karl Rove to commit perjury. Even though Bill Clinton lied about sex and Karl Rove lied about endangering national security. Oh, and by the way, Clinton's impeachment wasn't political because the impeachment articles were approved completely along party lines. (Oh, damn, that statement supports the assertion that the impeachment was for political reasons!)

So, Hutch has a point. (Hang on a second, let me stratch that out. It doesn't look right.) Hutch has a point. Hutch is a moron. (Yes, that's better.)

And how is it that we see district attorneys and juries go after people based upon technicalities? Because people are so sleazy that the only way to go after them is a technicality. Al Capone, the man who ran Chicago's South Side gang in the 1920s, owned the city. He couldn't get a conviction in Chicago. He owned the judges. He owned the police. He owned the juries. So, what did the treasury department do? Convicted him for tax evasion. Yes, a technicality. Because Capone had covered his ass when it came to convicting him of real crimes.

Did Bill Clinton commit a "real" crime when he lied about sex? No. Sex was the hang-up of the Gingrich Republicans and Kenneth Starr. It was also the only tactic they had to "get" him. They had been trying to get Clinton for years with no success, and lying about sex, they thought, was the only way they could do something to him.

Did Karl Rove or I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby commit a "real" crime when they lied about who told them about Valerie Plame's identity? Yes. Revealing Valerie Plame's identity put her and anyone who worked for her front-company, Brewster-Jennings, in jeopardy. It also destroyed a source of intelligence and put her informants in danger. And, worst of all, some people in the administration thought they could get away with punishing Joe Wilson by leaking his wife's identity as a CIA operative.

Rove fought the law, and the law won. At least, I hope it will.