After months in which the conventional wisdom suggested that [tag]corruption[/tag], as a political issue, lacked salience and would do little to help Democrats, Election Day proved otherwise. Not only was the issue important to voters, many of the incumbents tarnished most by scandal found themselves unemployed this week.
Some conservatives clearly get this. National Review’s Rich Lowry’s new column, for example, explains that the [tag]culture of corruption[/tag] “was real.” Lowry wrote, “That phrase was a much-contested talking point during the past two years, with Democrats touting it as an accurate description of the degraded ethical state of the congressional GOP and Republicans dismissing it as a smear. Democrats were much closer to the truth. Voters took a good whiff of the odor emanating from Washington and some of their Republican representatives, and recoiled.”
Other conservatives have an entirely different take. Instead of owning up to systemic problems, some on the right believe, “If it worked for the Dems, it can work for us.” It’s led some conservatives to start labeling the 110th Congress, the one that doesn’t start until January, as having its own corruption problems. The Wall Street Journal started the ball rolling today.
After winning an election shaped by corruption as much as Iraq, Democrats are about to elevate a set of leaders in the House and Senate that will include lawmakers who have had their own brushes with scandal.
Sen. Harry Reid (D., Nev.), who is expected to be elected to majority leader in the Senate, has come under attack for his relationship with Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff, a profitable land deal, and whether he inappropriately used campaign funds to give Christmas bonuses to employees at his condo complex.
The “relationship” has already been thoroughly debunked, but that doesn’t seem to matter.
Wait, it gets worse.
One far-right writer went so far as to label the 110th “the most corrupt Congress ever.” Yes, before it even convenes.
Matt Margolis and Mark Noonan have a new book, “Caucus of Corruption,” about the Dems’ alleged ethical and legal problems. As the book’s website explains:
For years, Democrats have tried and succeeded in using a phony ethics war to punish Republicans for being in power. Newt Gingrich and Tom DeLay have both paid the price for Democrat scandal-mongering. Enough is enough.
Caucus of Corruption by Matt Margolis and Mark Noonan is the first book to specifically discuss the hypocrisy and corruption of today’s Democratic Party. The book not only exposes the hypocrisy of the Democratic Party’s ongoing plan to regain power by portraying the Republicans as corrupt, it also details the rampant corruption deep in the Democrat’s ranks.
We now appear to have reached a point, as John Cole put it, that is “beyond parody.” Republicans ran Congress as a criminal enterprise. The legislative branch “became a historical punch line, a political obscenity on par with the court of Nero or Caligula — a stable of thieves and perverts who committed crimes rolling out of bed in the morning and did their very best to turn the mighty American empire into a debt-laden, despotic backwater, a Burkina Faso with cable.” And before Nancy Pelosi even touches the Speaker’s gavel, the right thinks they can turn the issue around on us?
Two quick points to consider: first, there were 15 congressional Republicans under federal investigation as of two weeks ago. When Dems get anywhere near that level, then the right might have a point. Until then, it’s absurd.
And second, Dems are serious about ethics reform. There are some members of the caucus burdened by legitimate questions, but unlike the GOP, our party is intent on improving the way the system operates, or under the Republican majority, failed to operate.
Nevertheless, a meme seems to be emerging. We’ve been warned.