This will be cross-posted on my blog, which can be viewed here:
http://wantsomewood.blogspot.com
The Democratic Party is a huge organization, with millions of members all over the country. Within its ranks are lots and lots of good, decent people (including many elected officials and Congresspeople) who want only to make their country and world a better place. Also within its ranks are a percentage of crooks, cheats, and liars (including some elected officials and Congresspeople). The exact same statement could be made about any large organization.
Of course, no one in the Democratic party should defend said crooks, cheats, and liars from justice, simply because they are fellow Democrats. I totally agree with Kos about that.
Having said that, we have to keep in mind that in the time we live, the right wing has perfected a noise machine that instantly promulgates its point of view from a thousand rooftops, along with a mainstream press that is easily intimidated over and over into repeating that point of view ad infinitum. Democrats are, of course, the frequent victims of this noise machine, with the result that the Democratic crooks always get more than their fair share of the limelight (and that Democrats who aren't crooks get unfairly and unjustly accused of wrongdoing). This means that when the news is full of some accusation against a Democrat, we should always be ready to at least give them the benefit of the doubt until we know all the facts, since we know that they already have a strike against them in the media. We also need to be ready to state out loud that Democrats who are corrupt shouldn't get more attention than similarly dishonest Republicans.
Cynthia McKinney, the congresswoman from Georgia, was a great recent example of this. Her assault on a Capitol Hill policeman, deplorable and embarrassing as it was, got as much or more ink and air time as all of the far-worse Republican scandals we have had to endure in the last few years. (She has since apologized.)
Speaking of Republican corruption, I frequently hear it argued in the media and the blogosphere that the existence of one or two corrupt Democrats means that the Democratic party somehow can't use the corruption issue against Republicans this year. My advice to the Democrats is this: ignore that advice and use it anyway.
If this seems impossible or foolhardy, look at what happened in 1994, when the Republicans were in a somewhat similar situation to the Democrats now, a minority party in Congress trying to become a majority party. Republicans shamelessly exploited the House bank "check-bouncing" scandal and other scandals involving one or two Democratic members of Congress, conveniently avoiding the fact that there were plenty of Republican Congresspeople who had bounced checks as well. While it cost them a few incumbents who were deeply involved in that scandal, it also helped them win control of both the House and the Senate. (Of course, it has to be pointed out here that the House bank "scandal" was in many ways a silly micro-issue that was ginned up into a larger one to serve the Republicans' ends.)
The bottom line is that if the existence of a single prominent Democrat that is accused of anything corrupt means that Democrats can't use a corruption argument against Republicans, then Democrats will never, ever be able to use that argument. The 1994 Republicans, of course, should not have been able to make that argument either, but they did it anyway, which shows not only how much gall they have, but that making such an argument in a similar situation doesn't necessarily doom anyone's chances of winning an election.
The other thing that is wrong about the advice is that Republican corruption in 2006 is many, many times worse than anything the Democrats did in the 1990's, and that alone should strengthen the Democrats' case. A little thinking makes this point objective.
The Democrats didn't neglect coastal hurricane protection, or appoint stupid political hacks to head the Federal Emergency Management Agency, costing lives when Hurricane Katrina hit the Southeast coast. The Republicans did.
The Democrats didn't snoop into the phone records of millions of Americans, or collect data on who they called and for how long, instead of taking real steps that might actually protect the American people from terrorism. The Republicans did.
The Democrats didn't demand that K Street lobbying firms hire only people from their own party, or allow K Street lobbyists to write laws that coincidentally weakened government protections for average Americans. The Republicans did.
The Democrats didn't throw the tradition of redistricting every ten years out the window and gerrymander Congressional districts in Texas in the middle of the decade to win a few more seats in the House of Representatives. The Republicans did.
The Democrats didn't lie and mislead to get America involved in a stupid, insane war in Iraq that has wasted lives, damaged American credibility and diplomatic relations around the world, and made us more vulnerable to terrorism. The Republicans did. (And yes, I know perfectly well that there were Democrats in Congress that voted for the war too, and they should not have done so, but almost all of the opposition to the war in Congress came from Democrats, and many Democrats in Congress who voted for the war now oppose it. In addition, it is now well-known that Congress did not have access to the same pre-war information that the Bush administration had.)
Nothing any Democrat has been accused of doing, either now or in 1994, is anywhere near as bad as these scandals. That is the message that the American people should hear, loud and clear.