The Height of Partisanship

Just a brief comment on the Mark Foley episode that is roiling the House Republicans: the fact that these same people could get so worked up as to cost taxpayers 6.2 to 7 million dollars to investigate a consensual affair between two adults and meanwhile refuse to investigate a member of their own party who was sexually preying on teens puts these representatives at the height of partisanship. As Harold Myerson says,

After all, in not sharing what he knew about Foley with [Rep. Dale] Kildee [of Michigan, the only Democrat on the House Ethics Committee] Shimkus was merely following the Republicans' practice of cutting the other party out of all legislative deliberations and running the House of, by and emphatically for themselves.

The partisanship that fueled this cover-up is even more glaring when compared to how the House dealt with similar allegations in the 1980s, when, as Joseph Califano says, "the House could clean itself." Any attempt to paint their critics as partisan just indicates again how corrupt, cronyist, and unethical the House Republicans are for failing to realize just how much they breached the public's trust. The game of hot potato that members like Reynolds, Shimkus, Hastert, and Boehner are now engaged in represents yet another instance of the Republicans' failure to live by their supposed creed of taking personal responsibility.