I beg to differ.

Prosecutors may find the coverup easier to prove. Politicians might find the coverup easier to use as a bludgeon on their opponents.

But the crime is even worse than the coverup.

The crime in Watergate was that Nixon’s crowd was paying for a sophisticated operation to spy on and disrupt his political opponents.

The “crime” in Monicagate was that Clinton was getting oral sex in the White House from a woman young enough to be his daughter.

The crime in Scootergate – it seems to me – is that the Bush/Cheney crowd was willing to unmask and endanger a covert CIA agent as a way of retaliating against a critic of the Iraq War.

Democrats in Washington want to go two ways:

•Attack Bush’s people for lying to a prosecutor. At least, they wanted to do this until Karl Rove, the Big Enchilada, seemed to skate away from indictment.

•Make the story that Bush, et al lied about WMDs. Problem is, the Democrats swallowed that WMD line, too. They even helped sell it at the time.

Where’s the outrage of supposed patriots when high federal officials apparently conspire among themselves to out a secret intelligence agent – just to get back at somebody who’s criticizing them publicly?

Some might dare call it treason.