I live in a state where a 17 year old kid was sentenced to 10 years in jail for what everyone involved agreed was a consensual blowjob from a 15 year old girl. Nobody but the law wanted him in jail, not the girl or her parents or the public. Except for a few die hard racists (both parties were black) everybody hated the whole thing. He served two years before he was able to get out.
I don’t believe DAs give a flying fuck about looking evil, much less silly.
At the federal level it’s a whole different game. Especially when the case is as politically charged as the Plame Affair or the attorney-firings scandal.
Inspired by this evening’s Daily Show, i did some hunting on the White House website and came up with this comment, made by Scott McClellan at a White House Press Briefing on March 22, 2004. The topic of conversation was Richard Clarke’s recently-released book criticizing the Bush administration: