Roger Clemens Indicted, But Does Anyone Care About Lying?

Lies, damned lies and political lies. It was a big week for political lying. I mean, more so than usual.

The New York Times reports that the Department of Justice is about to indict former major league pitching star Roger Clemens for lying to Congress when he told a committee that he had never used steroids.

On Monday former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich declared victory when a federal jury was unable to reach unanimous agreement on 23 corruption counts. Blago of course didn’t mention that the jury did convict him of lying to the FBI. No biggie. Who cares?

A couple of years ago, a federal jury found Scooter Libby, former Vice President’s Cheney’s right hand man guilty of lying to federal prosecutors about his involvement in the outing of Valerie Plame as an undercover CIA operative. Conservatives claimed that the Libby conviction was a technicality because the Department of Justice could not nail him on the more “serious” accusations. President George W. Bush apparently agreed that Libby’s conviction on perjury charges wasn’t a big deal because the former President pardoned him.

Don’t get me started on former Marine Col. Ollie North who lied to Congress about American illegal military funding to the Contras in Nicaragua when he was a national security aide to Ronald Reagan. Conservatives hailed North as a hero for stonewalling the commie loving congressmen. The Corps must be so proud.

If college basketball analyst, Dick Vitale was a legal analyst, he might describe these perjuries as “ticky-tack” fouls. I don’t think Americans think so.

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Corrected on 8/20/10: An earlier version of this post incorrectly characterized the resolution of Rod Blagojevich’s trial. The jury was unable to reach a unanimous verdict on 23 counts.

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