There appears to be at least this difference between Republicans and Democrats. When Republicans are involved in scandal they're soon gone. When Democrats are involved in scandal they are permitted to remain in office as long as they're not in jail. Republicans Bob Livingston, Newt Gingrich, Tom Delay, Duke Cunningham, Bob Ney, and Mark Foley are all gone.
Not satisfied with that, however, the Democrats continue to call for Majority Leader Dennis Hastert's head over his handling of the Mark Foley disgrace even though their party allows their crooks and scoundrels to cling to power as long as they can be reelected. Ted Kennedy is still in office 25 years or more after being responsible for the death of a girl because he was DUI. Gary Condit was never forced to resign even though he was implicated in the murder of a young woman with whom he'd been having an affair. John Murtha was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Abscam bribery scandal but he still holds forth in the House. William Jefferson refuses to resign after being caught hiding $90,000 in bribe money in his office refrigerator, and the list goes on - Alcee Hastings, Marion Barry, and many others (See here for a full, and very lengthy, list of Democratic malefactors.).
The only way a Democrat is removed from office for corruption, it seems, is if he's sent to jail for it. Even then, as in the case of Marion Barry and Bobby Rush, they're sometimes re-elected to office when they get out.
There's lots of hypocrisy here, especially in the matter of Mark Foley's salacious instant messages to young congressional pages. The Democratic spokespersons on the television talk shows would have us believe that they're deeply concerned about sick adults luring children into sexual activity. They tell us how reprehensible what Mark Foley did is, and of course it is, but, as a recent New York Times column (subscription required) by David Brooks reminds us to ask, where are the liberal outcries over the theatrical performances of The Vagina Monologues which is celebrated on campuses all across the nation and has garnered great acclaim from the "anything goes" Leftists among our cultural elites?
In the play, a thirteen year old girl (later changed to a sixteen year old) is seduced by an adult and persuaded to engage in Foley-like behaviors that are explicitly sexual and pedophilic. Despite its glorification of adult sex with children this play is extolled as "cutting edge" cultural criticism. Colleges which have made the gauche blunder of prohibiting its performance have suffered loud protests and obloquy from campus "free speechers" and civil libertarians.
But where do the liberals who are so concerned about sexual predation stand on this? Why have they not uttered even a peep about how contemptible a play like this is? The only complaints I have read about TVM, which clearly endorses adult/adolescent sex, have come from the pens of conservatives.
So, any liberal who regales us about the Republicans' culture of corruption and the sexual deviants in their ranks or who demands Dennis Hastert's resignation should be required to explain why he or she doesn't also object to the showing of a play which clearly promotes the very sort of thing that Foley evidently only fantasized about. They should also be compelled to explain why they don't condemn and urge boycotts of musical groups like the Rolling Stones for performing songs with explicitly pedophilic lyrics like Stray Cat Blues.
Their failure to do either causes them to forfeit all credibility on the subject of sexual deviancy with minors and whatever censure they express on the matter should be regarded as empty hypocrisy.
By the way, there is a reason, I suppose, why TVM doesn't get bombarded with the same sort of moral brimstone from the Left that Foley and Republicans in general are being pelted with. TVM is a feminist rhapsody. The adult who seduces the young girl in the play is a woman. Apparently, for liberals, that makes all the difference in the world.
