A Little Truthiness?

The Washington Post's Ruth Marcus has a column today in which she argues that:

In his Senate testimony last week, Gonzales once again dissembled and misled. He was too clever by seven-eighths. He employed his signature brand of inartful dodging -- linguistic evasion, poorly executed. The brutalizing he received from senators of both parties was abundantly deserved.

But I don't think he actually lied about his March 2004 hospital encounter with then-Attorney General John Ashcroft. I certainly don't think he could be charged with -- much less convicted of -- perjury.

Her argument is essentially that Gonzales was obliged to tell some of the truth, some of the time. She finds some support in that the Supreme's have apparently ruled that the perjury statutes should be very narrowly construed, in that the witness oblidged only to state the literal truth, even if that literal truth is misleading and only a partial answer - which of makes a mockery of the "truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth."

Whether Fredo's evasions can be fitted into that narrow cell, I don't know, but if so it suggests that Bill C. might not have been committing perjury when he said he "did not have sexual relations with that woman." In any case, I think that Fredo's more likely lies are concerned with his pretended ignorance of how the list of fired attorneys was created.

In fact we don't have enough information to know for sure in which parts of his testimony Gonzales was lying - and we can't know without truthful testimony. In any case, Congress should not tolerate Gonzales deceptive behavior, whether or not it flunks the test of criminal perjury. Either a special counsel should be appointed to investigate or he should be impeached.