The Foley Matter
EDITORIAL, NYTimes on
the Web, October 3, 2006
History suggests that once a
political party achieves sweeping power, it will only be a matter of time before
the power becomes the entire point. Policy, ideology, ethics all gradually
fall away, replaced by a political machine that exists to win elections and
dispense the goodies that come as a result. The only surprise in
Washington now is that the Congressional Republicans managed to reach that point
of decayed purpose so thoroughly, so fast.
That House leaders knew Representative Mark Foley had been sending inappropriate
e-mail to Capitol pages and did little about it is terrible. It is also
the latest in a long, depressing pattern: When there is a choice between
the right thing to do and the easiest route to perpetuation of power, top
Republicans always pick wrong.
The news about Mr. Foley should have set off alarm bells instantly, even if the
messages the leaders saw were of the “inappropriate” variety rather than the
flat-out salacious versions that surfaced last week. But there was
certainly no sense of urgency in their response, which seemed directed at
sweeping the matter under the rug rather than finding out precisely what was
going on.
The obvious first step — notifying the bipartisan committee that oversees the
page program — was never taken, presumably because that would have meant
bringing a Democrat into the discussions. After Mr. Foley assured everyone
that he was simply engaged in mentoring, whatever leadership inquiry there was
ended with telling him to stop e-mailing the youth who got the inappropriate
letter.
It’s astonishing behavior for a party that sold itself as the champion of
conservative social values. But then so was the fact that a party that
prides itself on fiscal conservatism managed to roll up record-breaking
deficits, featuring large amounts of wasteful pork earmarked to the districts of
powerful legislators or the profit sheets of generous campaign contributors.
So was the speed with which the party that billed itself as the voice of
grass-roots exurban and suburban America turned itself into the partner of every
special-interest lobbyist with a checkbook.
The good news is that American democracy, so flawed in many ways, is often
fairly efficient at punishing parties that become addicted to self-perpetuation.
This November may not force Congress to come up with a plan for Iraq, or even
immigration. But if it reminds elected officials that there’s a punishment
waiting for those who fall in love with their own sense of entitlement, it will
have done its job.
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