They cared about the lies. The Dems couldn't hang him on it, because most people figured, "Eh, I'd have lied, too."
With this administration, it's not just the lies. That's just the easier stuff to prove. But it suggests that there's something behind it. In many cases, it seems that there is something behind it.
Like [link|http://onegoodmovemedia.org/movies/0703/ds032007johnbolton.mov|Jon Stewart asked Bolton] (paraphrased, I can't watch the clip here), "If there was nothing wrong with what the administration did, why didn't they just man-up and say, 'This is what we did, and this is why?'"