A newly posted article by Jeffrey Bell and William Kristol in The Weekly Standard is pretty revealing about how the right will try to spin any indictments in the Plame affair and all the other brewing scandals. It's the "criminalizing politics" meme, enhanced version, more of same but somewhat refined, so now it's conservatives who are purportedly being criminalized:
Criminalizing Conservatives
Key grafs below the flip. Via Laura Rozen
Update: It's already making the rounds: Red State and Powerline
Why are conservative Republicans, who control the executive and legislative branches of government for the first time in living memory, so vulnerable to the phenomenon of criminalization? Is it simple payback for the impeachment of Bill Clinton? Or is it a reflection of some deep malady at the heart of American politics? If criminalization is seen to loom ahead for every conservative who begins successfully to act out his or her beliefs in government or politics, is the project of conservative reform sustainable?
We don't pretend to have all the answers, or a solid answer even to one of these questions. But it's a reasonable bet that the fall of 2005 will be remembered as a time when it became clear that a comprehensive strategy of criminalization had been implemented to inflict defeat on conservatives who seek to govern as conservatives. And it is clear that thinking through a response to this challenge is a task conservatives can no longer postpone.
This of course is the old "stab in the back" defense. It's quite amazing that conservatives control all three branches of government, and yet they can suggest that getting caught abusing their power is the product of a liberal conspiracy, payback for what they did to Clinton. It's bold; it's audacious; it ignores the facts, and it is likely to play well with the base. Dr. Goebbels would be proud. "Propaganda must facilitate the displacement of aggression by specifying the targets for hatred."