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.