It appears that leaders of both parties in Congress have raised a protest over the search and seizure at the Capitol Office Building in connection with investigations of bribery and corruption by sitting Congressional representatives. Among the targets of the raid was Rep. William Jefferson of Louisiana, alleged to have taken a bribe of $100k in exchange for legislative assistance and support.
What needs to be put aside, for the moment, is the absurd defense that the search was motivated solely by politics from the GOP to diffuse the current level of scandal by the scores of GOP Congressional representatives. Whether that contention of political timing is partially true or not, and it probably has some veracity in the current climate, misses the point. Two wrongs do not make a right. If there is actual concrete and credible evidence that Jefferson accepted bribes, he should be brought down. The same standard should apply to Cunningham, Delay, Bob Ney, and the entire list. What must be condemned is the culture of corruption that would attempt to shield any member of Congress, of ANY political party, from legal prosecution for malfeasance in office.
The greater problem has been the debilitating willingness of Congress to look the other way and attempt to defer, divert or sabotage legitimate inquiry into misconduct by political leaders based upon their political party affiliation. The attempt to shield Delay failed, but only because his misconduct was so blatant and widespread that no blanket of secrecy could conceal it. In fact, his penchant for riding roughshod over his allies and enemies diminished the number of "troops" willing to back him when the "hammer" fell upon him [rather than being wielded by him].
But legitimate attempts to inquire into misconduct by the White House staff, the Vice President and the President have been consistently thwarted by partisan protectionism. If the underlying "facts" and "evidence" were not damning, why not publicly air the legitimate questions and concerns? To do so in an orderly manner, if the result were to exonerate the White House, would be a healthy housecleaning process for the psyche of this country. At present, most people believe that the President has broken the law. A stalwart 30% are immune and will never believe that Bush has done wrong, no matter what facts or evidence are established. But the rest of us labor under a cloud of shame and doubt, believing that our President has held himself above the law and disgraced our country, but also knowing that the institution of government has been so thoroughly corrupted that he will never be held accountable for his actions and decisions, no matter what loss of life and damage to the country he has inflicted.
The country required a process of healing and psychological reconciliation after the Viet Nam War and the Nixon Watergate Scandal. To a limited degree, the country began to believe that government could have a valid and salutary purpose. Playing upon the latent scars of doubt, however, the Reagan Revolution cast the government as "bad" and "wasteful" and led to the GOP ascendancy. The Newt Gingrich led PR revolution used psycholinguistics to label almost any beneficial public function of government as "liberal" which he cast as a pejorative term.
During the Clinton Administration, the country saw proof that the government could function in a supportive and somewhat healthy manner, even when the Commander in Chief may have been vain and venal. In other words, the "institution" of government could function for the benefit of the people, even when the individual political leader faltered. Clinton left office with the economy in good condition, a budget surplus and no impending foreign policy crisis.
Since that time, however, the budget deficit has grown to levels unseen in the entire history of the nation, we have been deliberately embroiled in an unnecessary foreign conflict that has cost tens of thousands of lives, the government has grown in size by a substantial percentage, the public "till" has been left open for large corporations favored by the White House to dip from without competitive bidding or accountability for fraud and mismanagement, and the list of decline goes on. The functioning of the current national government appears to be focused upon how the wealthy elite can loot the public coffers, with little regard for the public welfare functions for which the government was founded. Public safety, disaster relief, public education, public health are all at the bottom of the list of priorities. Attention is diverted to the Bogeyman of "terrorism" that is used to exploit racist and xenophobic fears of the uneducated and unthinking populace.
Our nation, once respected as a true world leader, is now viewed as a paper tiger with an unpredictable fool at the reins. Beyond our borders, the US is feared more for what misguided and foolish act it might undertake, than for its ability to marshal universal support for a just policy or initiative. The world and global markets are reacting to the US policy respecting Iran with nervousness, not because of the rectitude and wisdom of the Bush administration position, but because Bush might just be foolish enough to launch an attack on Iran [perhaps even a nuclear attack].
Good government stems from respect for the institutions of government, respect for the positions held by the public servants in those positions, and a resulting respect for the actions and policies that grow out of the functioning of a government led by respectful leaders who understand the importance of their role as public servants and stewards. We have strayed so far from those principles, that we may not recover in more than a generation. And there still remain many months during which more damage can be done. The first step toward recovery must be an unflinching commitment to remove from office those who have disgraced their office and their role as public servant. Whatever their political party affiliation, whatever the level of their office, no quarter and no excuse must be given.
That commitment must not be trivialized by "investigations" into transgressions like filing a report a few days late, when the required report was actually filed. Public servants are human beings. But if we allow embattled politicians to equate such minor oversights with the selling of ones vote in exchange for a bribe, or deliberately disclosing highly sensitive classified information for the purposes of retaliation against a political foe, or ordering the surveillance and intrusion into domestic communications without following the prescribed procedures to assure due process, then we have lost our moral compass and the experiment that we call Democracy is over.
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