PlameGate & Rove: the Right Reacts – Part II

Jonah Goldberg comments over at NRO’s The Corner is turning out to be an efficient ways of keeping up with the right’s reaction to the possibility that Karl Rove leaked the identity of Valerie Plame as a CIA operative. At first, it was denial. Now Mr. Goldberg has evolved to the “so what” stage. In his MILLER & COOPER II, he states:

I don’t think a crime was committed, according to the actual law, and I sincerely doubt that the White House intended to “out” Plame as a way to punish Joe Wilson. I think this was a theory largely burped out of one of the folds of Joe Wilson’s Jabba-the-Hut sized ego). I think Fitzgerald was bullied into this prosecution by a feverishly anti-Bush media feeding frenzy. I think this prosecution – seen from the outside – makes no sense. I think Firtzgerald had better have a good reason for what he’s doing or it will kill his political career.

On the not a crime issue, see Mark Kleiman. Then again, Ed Meese suggested Ms. Plame was not a CIA operative.

In his MILLER & COOPER I, Mr. Goldberg launched into the standard rant of liberals excused crimes by Bill Clinton:

The reason this is interesting is it illustrates the utilitarianism of at least some liberals when it comes to first principles. There’s no way of proving this, but I cannot imagine that these callers would have taken the same position if Bill Clinton’s White House was the target.

Gee – I thought Ms. Lewinsky was simply the object of Clinton’s adulterous lust and not a CIA asset. But this may explain the latest Clinton bashing from NRO’s Kathryn Lopex:

It helps perpetuate the long-standing myth that the Bill Clinton impeachment trial was all about sex. It wasn’t. Back around 1994, an independent counsel was appointed by Bill Clinton’s attorney general (Janet Reno, not Ann Coulter) to investigate a land deal that went awry … What crimes did the House of Representatives find sufficient evidence for which to require Bill Clinton to stand trial before the Senate? Providing “perjurious, false and misleading testimony” to a grand jury and of obstruction of justice “in an effort to delay, impede, cover up and conceal” evidence.

Alas, Ms. Lopez shows utter disdain for her readers as she fails to tell them two critical matters. The special prosecutors never brought charges against President Clinton on matters related to this land deal. Secondly, all of the House’s charges involved the President’s refusal to initially come clean about his affair.

Bottom line: the NRO is obsessed about an affair but is not concerned over the outing of a CIA operative for partisan and vindictive purposes.