Flip Flop: As we noted earlier, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison floated the idea on Meet the Press yesterday that if White House staffers are indicted for perjury in the CIA Leak investigation, it won’t matter because perjury is just a “technicality.”

My, what a difference six years and eight days can make. On February 12, 1999, speaking in the Senate, Ms. Hutchison made it crystal clear that she thought perjury was injurious to our very system of jurisprudence.

According to the Congressional Record, she said:

Lying is a moral wrong. Perjury is a lie told under oath that is legally wrong. To be illegal, the lie must be willfully told, must be believed to be untrue, and must relate to a material matter. Title 18, Section 1621 and 1623, U.S. Code…

The edifice of American jurisprudence rests on the foundation of the due process of law. The mortar in that foundation is the oath. Those who seek to obstruct justice weaken that foundation, and those who violate the oath would tear the whole structure down.

Every day, thousands of citizens in thousands of courtrooms across America are sworn in as jurors, as grand jurors, as witnesses, as defendants. On those oaths rest the due process of law upon which all of our other rights are based.

The oath is how we defend ourselves against those who would subvert our system by breaking our laws. There are Americans in jail today because they violated that oath. Others have prevailed at the bar of justice because of that oath.

With rumors flying about who would replace which indicted co-conspirator in the CIA leak investigation, Pensito Review has decided to sponsor a contest. Please write in the names of the people you think would replace Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Scooter Libby, etc.

You can choose anyone you think would a) actually be selected, b) be qualified, or c) probably not be named but should be.

For example, I doubt “Jeff Gannon” could make a worse deputy chief of staff than Karen Hughes, whose Mideast “Listening” tour set back American relations almost as much as the war in Iraq. And yet, Hughes’ name is being bandied.

Nor could there be a bigger train wreck than Condo Rice for vice president, but at the Bush White House, nothing succeeds like…utter, abject failure. So no suggestion is too wild, too preposperous, too depressing to consider.

Come on, let us hear from you. The winner will receive something we haven’t figured out yet but it will certainly include being applauded on your favorite News and Information Web Site.

Live shot of Pensito Review’s Northeast Florida office backyard

Wilma blows: From the Northeast Florida office: Under only a wind advisory (30 – 40 miles sustained and gusts to 50) and tropical storm warning. Squirrels not using feeder.

From Maggie Burns in the Baltimore Chronicle:

• Powell told Bush & Cheney Plame was undercover: Former Secretary of State Colin Powell told Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) that in July 2003 he shared information with both President Bush and Vice President Cheney from a classified State Dept. memo that made it clear that Valerie Plame’s identity was secret. A week later Bob Novak outed Plame in his syndicated column, citing two unidentified Bush officials.
• As many as 18 Indictments: “We are told that eight indictments have already been prepared, with the possibility of another ten. These indictments include senior White House staff, most notably Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff Scooter Libby, Fred Flights (special assistant to John Bolton), and—very surprisingly—National Security Adviser Steve Hadley. Apparently, Libby and Hadley have both been told by their lawyers to expect indictments. The indictment of senior Bush political advisor Karl Rove seems highly probable.”
• Bush is alone: “[If] any significant portion of this information is valid, it strongly suggests that the Bush team has been diminished to its irreducible core of Bush himself, his White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card, Karen Hughes, Harriet Miers, and a few of his relatives. This is their constituency, reduced to its true components, exactly where and what it should have been from the first, back when this quintessentially unqualified man started making little noises about running for the White House back in the late 1990s.”

Burns also confirms two rumors we have reported earlier:

• Bush wants Condi for VP: “Undoubtedly the White House would prefer to replace Cheney with Condoleezza Rice, who has been ingratiating herself with Bush. But either way, the situation is not a winner for the Bush team.” (Our story is here.)
• McCain being drafted for VP: “A parade of senior Republican senators have evidently been privately pushing McCain to lobby to be Cheney’s replacement. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has also been mentioned.” (Our story is here.)