Stuart Taylor Has Some Questions for Republicans

In the latest issue of the National Journal Stuart Taylor asks:

In 1998, the [Wall Street] Journal saw criminal cover-ups -- even of matters that were not themselves crimes -- as a big deal. "The latest Clinton scandal involving Monica Lewinsky is titillating because of sex," the Journal editorialized then, "but it derives its legal and political importance from the issues of perjury and obstruction of justice."

Back then, other respected conservatives -- Mary Matalin and William Kristol, for example -- were even more emphatic about what Matalin called Clinton's "perjury, suborning perjury, obstruction of justice, conspiracy." They have a far more dismissive view of the evidence of high-level lies underpinning the indictment of Libby and the near-indictment of Karl Rove.

"I now think the whole prosecution is absurd," Kristol said on Fox News on April 9. Dismissing the perjury charge against Libby as "technical" and "dubious," Kristol accused Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald of "a politically motivated attempt to wound the Bush administration."

Matalin, who worked in Cheney's office with Libby, has understandably vouched for his character. But she has also said this: "I think there's something about these prosecutions where it's become standard operating procedure that somebody just gets tagged with something ... to justify the existence of [the investigation]."

The Journal stands out from other apologists. Its June 14 editorial -- a tour de force of distortion not unlike many a liberal New York Times editorial -- is worth detailed dissection. While celebrating Rove's nonindictment, the editorial asserts that the evidence against Libby "comes down to nothing more than the fact that Mr. Libby's memory of conversations with three reporters differs from that of the reporters themselves." [emphasis mine]

Read it here.

Well, Stuart, that's what parties and partisans do. To expect consistency or rigid adherence to principles from spin doctors and unofficial Party organs [and that is precisely what the WSJ and the NYT are] is absurd, and you very well know it. In the American political system parties are little more than mechanisms for winning elections by mobilizing and organizing political participation. Any argument or position that serves those interests will be adopted, no matter how blatantly it contradicts previous positions or statements.

Mr. Taylor is indulging himself in the cheapest, easiest, laziest form of journalism -- pointing out inconsistencies and shouting "hypocrisy." It's a style of criticism particularly popular with adolescents because it allows them to assume an unearned posture of moral superiority and requires no effort to understand the deeper issues and meanings involved in the situation.

It is a cheap and tawdry trick -- a substitute for real analysis and understanding -- and it is disappointing to see Mr. Taylor descending to the level of playground taunts.