No more blonde cheerleaders as senator

Only in Texas . . .

White House allies of the neofascists Karl Rove and Scooter Libby are quietly circulating talking points. Republicans sympathetic to the administration are trying to make the case that bringing charges like perjury mean the prosecutor does not have a strong case, that indicting them would amount to criminalizing politics. Incredible bullshit.

According to the Washington Post, the "technicality" talking point was first uttered in public Sunday by Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, appearing on NBC's "Meet the Press" with Tim Russert. This is like a scene on the Daily Show. It is too good to pass up. Just remember, this braindead wench is serving as a senator from a state in our Union.

"SEN. HUTCHISON: I certainly hope that if there is going to be an indictment . . . that it is an indictment on a crime and not some perjury technicality where they couldn't indict on the crime and so they go to something just to show that their two years of investigation was not a waste of time and taxpayer dollars. So they go to something that trips someone up because they said something in the first grand jury and then maybe they found new information or they forgot something and they tried to correct that in a second grand jury. . . .

"MR. RUSSERT: But the fact is perjury or obstruction of justice is a very serious crime and Republicans certainly thought so when charges were placed against Bill Clinton before the United States Senate. Senator Hutchison.

"SEN. HUTCHISON: Well, there were charges against Bill Clinton besides perjury and obstruction of justice. And I'm not saying that those are not crimes. . . . I think that it is important, of course, that we have a perjury and an obstruction of justice crime, but I also think we are seeing grand juries and U.S. attorneys and district attorneys that go for technicalities, sort of a gotcha mentality in this country."

Gotcha mentality. Un-huh. Let's remind Senator Kay of a couple points in her obviously forgettable career. For the record, there were two articles of impeachment against Clinton: One for perjury, one for obstruction of justice. No other charges.

Senator Kay, like most Senate Republicans, voted "guilty" on both of them. And in a statement, she explained her vote this way:

"If only the President had followed the simple, high moral principle handed to us by our Nation's first leader as a child and had said early in this episode 'I cannot tell a lie,' we would not be here today."

Isn't that sweet. Remember, this is the state that also produced Tom DeLay, George W. Bush and Harriet Miers. Lord save us from further Texas idiots.