And a very good question it is:
It isn't the old and famous: What did the president know and when did he know it? (We now know a good bit about what this president knew and when he knew it. And what he did after he knew it.)As we've seen with both the GOP and the traditional media, lying about sex is easier to grasp. They went bonkers when that happened. But, they seem to have a very hard time comprehending the idea that the President lied to them about a war. Bush and his crew lie all the time. The GOPers and the traditional media just accept it because, you know, we are a "nation at war" and "terrorists are evil."
It is: Did the president tell the special prosecutor's team all the truth that he knew, or did he tell them the same thing he was telling us back then?
We need to know that because what Bush was telling us in 2003 _ that he knew nothing about the leaks and wanted to find and fire all leakers _ ran the narrow gamut from misleading half-truth to bald-faced untruth.
Of course, it is not a federal crime for a president to lie to the American people when he is not under oath. (No, the usual punishment we inflict upon incumbent presidents who lie to us is to re-elect them.)
But it is a crime for anyone to mislead, impede or lie to federal investigators _ whether they are not under oath to tell the truth or not. For a president or a vice president, it can be an impeachable crime. (This point was argued most persuasively by congressional Republicans a few years ago as they made a federal case out of an incident that was not about national security, but consensual oral sex.)
For federal investigators, lying is a much more serious offense. To them, it's not spin. To them, it's a crime -- even for a President. We'll find out from Patrick Fitzgerald whether Bush lied -- and he has more veracity then what spews from Karl Rove or Scott McClellan.
