Deep Down and Dirty
Kay-Tell

To accompany the previous post on Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison's rolling out of the Right Wing Noise Machine's "Perjury? Phhaaaaah!" talking points, Facade Friend GlennF sent along a pointer to this story from Jake Tapper's blog at ABC News:

When President Clinton was going through his little adventure, Sen. Hutchison said that perjury and obstruction of justice were pretty serious charges. Each, she said, "is calculated to prevent a court and the public from discovering the truth and achieving justice in our judicial system."  This comes from her remarks in the Senate's closed deliberations on the articles of impeachment against President Clinton. She submitted them for the record on February 12, 1999.

Sen. Hutchison pointed out that the "Senate on numerous occasions has convicted impeached Federal Judges on allegations of perjury." She went on to say that "the standards are set by the Constitution for all officers of the Federal government. They are precisely the same, and we are obligated to apply them evenly."

"Lying is a moral wrong," Hutchison said. "Perjury is a lie told under oath that is legally wrong. To be illegal, the lie must be willfully told, must be believed to be untrue, and must relate to a material matter."

As Tapper pointed out, don't these people realize their current apologia can be refuted by quick and easy searches of the Congressional Record and/or Google? Or are the Republicans more relativistic (i.e., flip floppers) than they've been letting on?