Faced with the prospect of seeing one of the administration's top officials go to jail for lying in court, conservatives, who not that many years ago decried President Clinton's testimony in a politically motivated case, have decided that the only way to come out on top on a case involving outing a covert CIA agent is to attempt to confuse the public.
On Sunday, in the Washington Post Carol D. Leonnig wrote about "5 Myths About Scooter and the Slammer," dispelling myths such as Valerie Plame wasn't a covert operative.
While the five myths were interesting, the sixth, and most recent (Libby's sentence was unfair because Clinton didn't get a prison sentence) wasn't addressed.
By complaining that the 30 month jail sentence for Scooter Libby is unfair compared to what Clinton received, the conservatives are comparing apples and oranges, hoping that the lazy press won't stop them and point out the differences. Unfortunately, too many conservative talking heads make this point without being corrected.
For anyone that cares, the differences in the case is that Clinton reached an agreement with Special Prosecutor Robert Ray on his testimony, admitting he had wrongly tried to evade questions about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky, was fined and gave up his law license for five years.
Libby refused to admit to anything and went to trial, was convicted, and was sentenced to 30 months in jail. Maybe if Libby admitted his testimony wasn't accurate he wouldn't be facing jail time.
But pointing that out to the conservatives would deprive them of talking point and so the sixth myth lives on.
