Friday, vice presidential aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby was indicted on charges of perjury, obstruction of justice and making false statements.

While Libby clearly has not been convicted, the central irony remains – he’s out of a job, into hot water and could be headed to jail for allegedly covering up something that may not have been a crime.

It’s the lying, stupid. You would think he would have benefited by recent examples.

Martha Stewart went to camp cupcake for lying about a stock transaction she thought might have been illegal but probably wasn’t. And the irony of ironies, she was dumping a stock that was tanking, and the stock later recovered its original price and more.

Then, of course, was the example of Bill Clinton, a president nearly impeached not, if you will remember, for having White House sex with an intern, but for lying to cover up his extramarital affair.

There was something backward about that whole thing.

And, in the granddaddy of all political scandals, a variety of President Richard Nixon’s men went to jail, and the president himself was forced to resign in disgrace, over what the president himself once described as a “third-rate burglary.”

Of course, in Greek drama, pride precedes a great fall. Perhaps, in each case, the people involved thought they were above the truth, or even above the law.

And, indeed, a lie told once becomes a lie told twice, and so forth. Ultimately, the truth has a way of surfacing, and at the most inconvenient and embarrassing time.