Well the new Republican talking point looks to be
"the criminalization of politics": The Delay, Frist and Plame investigations are nothing less than a partisan persecution of righteous conservatives and a perversion of justice, and thus should be ignored or made to go away.
Unfortunately for them, some of us have a longer-term memory than a goldfish.
Witness E.J. Dionne's latest
Op-Ed appearing in tomorrow's Washington Post:
Those who thought investigations were a wonderful thing when Bill Clinton was president are suddenly facing prosecutors, and they don't like it. It seems like a hundred years ago when Clinton's defenders were accusing his opponents of using special prosecutors, lawsuits, criminal charges and, ultimately, impeachment to overturn the will of the voters.
Clinton's conservative enemies would have none of this. No, they said over and over, the Clinton mess was not about sex but about "perjury and the obstruction of justice" and "the rule of law."
The old conservative talking points are now inoperative.
More below the fold.
Dionne goes on to say:
This case goes to the heart of how Republicans recaptured power after the Clinton presidency and how they have held on to it since. The strategy involved attacking their adversaries without pity.
...
Since Bush took office, many of those who raised their voices in opposition to the president or his policies have found themselves under assault, although the president himself has maintained a careful distance from the bloodletting.
...
These cases portray an administration and a movement that can dish it out, but want to evade responsibility for doing so.
Dionne's not the only one turning up his nose at the kool-aid This latest meme looks to be dead on arrival:
This new "criminalization" concept suggests the problems that brought this cast of conservative characters to the attention of investigators are really no big deal: revealing the name of an undercover CIA agent as part of a larger effort to sell a phony case for war in Iraq, and possibly obstructing the subsequent investigation; violating Texas' campaign finance laws; trading in securities in such a way that suggests use of insider information.
The accusations, however, are indeed serious and need full investigations; no one gets a pass from the law. No one also should be judged guilty before the legal process runs its course. But surveying the passel of legal troubles that now afflict those in power in Washington, it's not the criminalization of politics that should concern Americans, but the politicization of crime.