It’s time we call a halt to the crybaby act waged in the press by the Democrats. As Harry Truman said, if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.
The liberal Democratic majority in Congress has been riding roughshod over rules, ethnics, and fair play for so long that they seem to think they deserve immunity for themselves from political counterattacks. People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
The liberal Democrats connived and acquiesced in the political destruction and criminal prosecution of an honorable Republican Congressman, George Hansen of Idaho, whose campaign disclosure violations weren’t nearly as egregious as Jim Wright’s or Tony Coelho’s. In the same year, the Republicans magnanimously passed up pursuing charges against Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro, who had done virtually the same thing as George Hansen, namely, an arguable nondisclosure of a spouse’s finances.
The Democrats tasted blood with their defeat of John Tower’s nomination to the Bush Cabinet. But the sanctimonious bleatings of men who had committed similar indiscretions was a big turn-off to the public.
Since the resignations of Rep. Jim Wright (D-TX) and Rep. Tony Coelho (D-CA), the Democrats have been looking for a scapegoat, but they must not be allowed to blame their problems on Republicans. Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-GA) was just the whistle-blower.
The ancient Greeks killed the messenger when they didn’t like his message. In modern times ,we usually thank the whistle-blower.
Jim Wright was forced out by two factors, and Gingrich didn’t have anything to do with either one. One was the devastating unanimous report of all Democrats and Republicans on the Ethics Committee. The other was the Washington Post’s dramatic expose of Wright’s $89,500-aide John Mack, a criminal who had been convicted of savagely assaulting and trying to kill a young woman with a knife and a hammer.
The Republicans didn’t topple Tony Coelho; he did it to himself. The Republicans didn’t even know about his junk bond dealings.
We should remember that the Democratic liberal majority devised and created the Ethics Committee, as well as the campaign disclosure rules and honoraria limitations. The committee counsel who build the case against Wright, Richard Phelan, is himself a Democrat.
The Democrats didn’t raise a peep of protest when a Democratic political consultant first published the innuendo about Rep. Tom Foley (D-WWA) in his newsletter. When a similar suggestion was made by a staffer working for the Republican National Committee, the Democrats responded by trying to make a whipping bout out of Lee Atwater.
The Democrats are downright tiresome the way they continue to cry around about Willie Horton. That’s just another excuse to kick Lee Atwater around, whose real offense is that he wants to do his job of electing Republicans.
It wasn’t Lee Atwater who exposed Willie Horton; it was the Reader’s Digest. The article, aptly titled “Getting Away With Murder,” gave the Digest’s millions of readers the gory details of how Dukakis’s unique furlough system released Horton to carry out his sadistic crimes.
The liberal Democrats don’t seem to comprehend the depth of feeling that exists at the grassroots about the Willie Horton and John Mack matters. Toward the criminals, women feel fright and a desire to meet out the severest punishment allowable. But for the coddlers and defenders of Horton and Mack (and Dukakis, Wright and Coelho top the list), women feel contempt and betrayal.
Trying to counterattack by blaming Republicans and Dukakis’s defeat and for Wright’s and Coelho’s resignations is as ridiculous as the Deng Xiaoping regime trying to rewrite history before our very eyes on television by “reporting” that the gunning down of unarmed students didn’t happen and that the army was nobly saving the people from counter-revolutionaries.
The biggest ethical problem is not the petty or even criminal illegalities – it’s the abuse of power under cover of legality. The Republicans are clearly justified in attacking on every issue. That’s what two-party government is all about.
It’s too bad that Wright and Coelho, as leaders of the arrogant Democratic liberal majority, are jumping ship before they could be held to account for the savings and loan scandal. The S&L problem is so massive that there’s enough blame to spread around on many people, but Democratic leaders Wright, Foley and Coelho deserve the most blame because they passed the legislation that allowed the questionable S&L practices, and then let years go by without a remedy. The biggest problem with Congress is not an excess of money but an excess of power – too much power and for too long. Since the liberal Democratic majority has feathered the nests of incumbents with so many perks that translate into campaign advantages that they are safer from defeat at the polls than a member of the Soviet Politburo, it’s time to throw the rascals out.
