Friday, October 28, 2005

Round and Round: When was the last time we had a president who wasn't embroiled in scandal during his second term? That would be Eisenhower.

Since then, LBJ (essentially in his second term, though he was eligible for another) had Vietnam, which prevented him from running for re-election. Nixon had Watergate. Reagan had Iran-Contra. Clinton had Lewinsky. Bush is now pestered by Valerie Plame.

What's disturbing about this trend is that each scandal seems to diminish in importance, but they still serve as a big distraction for the sitting president.

Clinton was impeached for lying about cheating on his wife. Bad man, but Republicans should have left the presidency out of this.

I still maintain that this Plame thing is overblown. Bush hasn't done anything wrong. I don't even think any of the White House aides knowingly identified Valerie Plame to get back at the nobody who is her husband. But that doesn't seem to prevent a Ken Starr wannabe from fishing for something, anything, to get an indictment.

"Scooter" faces charges of obstruction of justice, false statement, and perjury. No mention of any charges for outing a covert CIA agent. This is eerily reminiscent of Clinton getting charged with perjury about Monica Lewinsky, when Ken Starr was supposed to be investigating Whitewater -- an issue for which the Clintons were later exonerated.

Granted, the Plame case is far from being over, unfortunately. So the story isn't finished yet. And if we've learned anything in politics, it's that anything is possible, even if it seems unreal.