Ruth Marcus of the WaPo says Attorney General Alberto Gonzales didn't commit perjury, so Democrats wanting to turn this into Watergate should sit their asses down.
Well, ok, she didn't say it exactly that way. This is what she said:
In his Senate testimony last week, Gonzales once again dissembled and misled. He was too clever by seven-eighths. He employed his signature brand of inartful dodging -- linguistic evasion, poorly executed. The brutalizing he received from senators of both parties was abundantly deserved.
But I don't think he actually lied about his March 2004 hospital encounter with then-Attorney General John Ashcroft. I certainly don't think he could be charged with -- much less convicted of -- perjury.
It's really no wonder Democrats have latched onto perjury charges as the magic bullet to fell Republicans. They used it against Scooter Libby, who perjured himself when no crime was committed. They've tried repeatedly to say every person in the White House--from the President to the janitor (well, almost)--have lied about a whole host of issues: WMDs, reasons for war in Iraq, Cheney's energy summit, Halliburton, the government's role in 9/11, Halliburton, the Patriot Act, Halliburton, and, well, Halliburton.
Now Democrats are hopping up and down trying to get a perjury charge against Gonzales, a Bush loyalist from the days when he was governor. It seems like the Dems strategy is to investigate, investigate, investigate, and when they don't find anything, just make shit up. After all, they have the nutroots ready to lick their boots at every opportunity.
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