First, we have never cared much for The Hammer, as the press loves to report his nickname. He strikes us as one who too easily invokes religion as the basis for his politicking, and as too smarmy and self assured by half. And when SWNID thinks someone is too self-assured, well, he's really self-assured. His miserable toupee really rounds out the image of the lowbrow religious huckster with a fast line and a fast getaway car.
But second, and more substantially we tire of the truth that only Republicans can have scandals. Yes, Clinton had his impeachment and all that, but we insist that it is the Rs who are most often investigated, indicted, or driven from office because of some scandal.
We cite the example of former Hamilton County prosecutor Mike Allen, who resigned immediately when it was revealed that he had a sexual affair with a subordinate, as the archetype of this phenomenon. Allen was out on his ear the moment the scandal broke, and every southwest Ohio Republican figure of any stature above precinct committeeman instantly was on the phone figuring out how to replace him on the Bush campaign and in the prosecutor's office. And they did quite nicely, thank you.
Now, why is it that the Rs have all the scandals? Because the Rs have all the principles. Rs, despite the compromises that they make to obtain power, by their ideology retain some semblance of a moral code. Therefore, when scandal erupts, they purge their party.
Remember Bob Livingstone? I bet you don't. He was the guy who took over as Speaker of the House when Gingrich resigned because of an extramarital affair. Livingstone was out a few days later for the same reason. He resigned voluntarily, which is to say that everyone in the House Republican caucus told him to quit, just as they did with Gingrich. Wheaton College alum and former high school wrestling coach Dennis Hastert has had the job since, not least because he's Mr. Clean on sex and money.
Ds, on the other hand, have no principles except that the ends justify the means. They don't care if their party is filled with bazillionaires who drive drunk off bridges with young women in the car or con artists who make dough on bogus real estate appraisals and get adolescent sexual thrills from messing around with emotionally vulnerable underlings in the governmental workplace. Those guys "fight for America's working families," so they can steal and adulterize as much as they very well please. And when their term is up, they'll campaign for the wife they've been adulterizing on all these years.
Note especially how this applies to campaign finance, the particular sin of Congressman DeLay. What the Rs do, like raising money from rich guys in Houston, corrupts the system. What the Ds do, like raising money from rich guys in Hollywood, gets ordinary Americans involved in the system. When the Rs ask that people present ID at the polls, they're disenfrancising people. When the Ds get felons and dead people to vote multiple times, they're insuring that everyone has a vote.
While I stipulate that some Ds are exceptionally moral and some Rs are utterly corrupt, I nevertheless assert the following as a fair estimate of the present state of the two-party system in this country: Corrupt as they are, the Rs are the one party with some remnant of a moral code. Incidentally, they are also the one party with some ideas. Meanwhile, the Ds are running on their hatred of the Rs as their only idea and their return to power as the end that justifies all means.
We understand from an NPR news report that the leftist People for the American Way said that the day of DeLay's indictment should be declared a national holiday. Such is the depth to which the left in this country has sunk. All that they can celebrate is that a single Republican congressman gets an indictment, and they think that's good for the country.So as long as the Rs have a moral code, they'll be held to it. And as long as the Ds don't, they'll be exempt from moral scrutiny. And on that basis, they'll claim moral superiority.
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