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March 08, 2010

A very depressing, neverending cycle

By CREW Staff

Congress, Ethics, House Members, Randy "Duke" Cunningham, Nancy Pelosi, Tom DeLay

Amid the fallout over ethics scandals, Slate's Christopher Beam writes that the more things change, the more they stay the same:

When Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats took control of Congress in 2006 on a pledge to "drain the swamp" of corruption that is Washington, D.C., it seemed that Republicans would never escape the muck. Now, with November approaching, not only have Republicans reached dry land, they're poised to drown Democrats in their own ethical filth.

What's changed? Very little -- and that's the point. It's not that Republicans have become saints and Democrats have become devils. It's that Democrats are in power.

Beam notes that the staggering setback suffered by Republicans in the 2006 election was due to several scandals surrounding GOP Reps. Tom DeLay, Randy "Duke" Cunningham and others. Beam adds:

The most reliable predictor of which party will find itself enmeshed in scandal is which one is in power.

"I've always called elections the opportunity to throw the bums out and throw a new set of bums in," says Larry Sabato, political analyst and prognosticator extraordinaire of the University of Virginia. "Partisans never believe that. They think their side is golden and the opposition is a bunch of second cousins to Beelzebub."