Cognitive dissonance

...or maybe just standard Republican Operating Procedure (i.e. IOKIYAR).

On Meet the Press, discussing the Plame investigation, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson said today:

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 so they go to something just to show that their two years of investigation were not a waste of time and dollars.

Remember the Clinton impeachment? Clinton was impeached on two counts, grand jury perjury and obstruction of justice. We had long, solemn pontification from the right about the seriousness of these charges, and how it wasn't about the sex, it was about the LYING?

Now let's jump into the "Way Back" machine, travel back to 1998 and listen in on Senator Henry Hyde:

"The question before this House is rather simple. It's not about sex ... The matter before the House is lying under oath. This is called perjury."

Hyde said perjury and obstruction of justice "cannot be reconciled with the office of the president of the United States ... The people's trust has been betrayed."

He accused Clinton of a "premeditated, deliberate corruption of the nation's system of justice."

BTW, perjury is just a "little" technicality punishable by up to five years in prison.