July 30, 2008
Will the GOP Recover from Ted Stevens?
Ed Morrissey weighs in on Stevens at HotAir:
In truth, the GOP should have pushed Stevens out of the race a year ago. The basic structure of his unethical activities with Veco has been well known for at least that long. Even without that, Stevens’ embarrassing pork-barrel antics such as the Bridge to Nowhere came to exemplify all of the worst impulses of Congress on perks and power. Instead of cleaning house when they could, the Republicans couldn’t bring themselves to tell a 40-year man that his time was over and that it was time to find fresh blood.We can all pray that Ted Stevens will be gone soon, but this story is much bigger than one senator. There's a lesson to be learned, here, folks. We have a crisis of leadership. The GOP "leadership" looked the other way while Tom Delay built an unprecedented cash-for-influence pipeline running from K-Street to Capitol Hill. The GOP "leadership" looked the other way while Bob Ney and Duke Cunningham were lining their pockets with bribes. The GOP "leadership" looked the other way while Mark Foley was engaging in his intern shenanigans. Finally, the GOP "leadership" has looked the other way while Ted Stevens has piled up his ill-gotten gains. This is not about a few ethically-challenged men. There is a pattern here. There is a serious failure of leadership in the GOP.
Whether or not you are bothered by the moral aspect of all this stuff, you should at least be troubled by the broader political impact of all these revelations. While there's no doubt that the media falls all over itself to broadcast the news of a Republican scandal, these men have not been mere victims of media bias. They made their own problems--and in doing so, have created huge problems for the GOP at large. Every new revelation of misconduct by a Republican like Mark Foley or Ted Stevens makes it that much tougher for other Republicans--and of most concern, reformist Republicans--to get elected. The GOP needs to clean up its own house and give the voters something positive to vote for. Someday, the GOP will do so, but until that happens, I predict many days months years in the wilderness for the GOP.
