PlameGate: Byron York Calls Perjury No Big Deal

Byron York makes the following phony distinction:

A pattern is emerging in pre-trial arguments in the perjury and obstruction of justice case against former Cheney chief of staff Lewis Libby. That pattern is the recurring conflict between the Little Case and the Big Case. The Little Case is the narrow, tightly defined charge that Libby lied to prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s grand jury. For example, did Libby lie when he testified that NBC’s Tim Russert “said to me, did you know that Ambassador Wilson’s wife…works at the CIA? And I said, no, I don’t know that”? Did Libby lie when he testified that, when speaking to journalists about the information that Valerie Plame Wilson worked at the CIA, “I was very clear to say reporters are telling us that because in my mind I still didn’t know it as a fact”? If Fitzgerald had his way, that is all the case would be about. At every hearing, and in every court filing, he has argued that the case is simply a matter of a few specific false statements allegedly made by Libby. Nothing else matters – just the Little Case.

After all, no one at the National Review ever made a big deal about Clinton lying about his sex life – right? But what Mr. York fails to admit is that Libby did more than simply lie. He obstructed the investigation of the “Big Case”.

Then again – Mr. York has also said it was no big deal that Robert Novak told the world that Valerie Plame was a CIA agent since Mr. York and his NRO colleagues have repeatedly claimed that was common knowledge before July 2003. Of course, these NRO folks lie when they say that, but then dishonesty for them is no big deal.