Back at the Office, the Subject is Sen. Craig

Mr. Peepers was giddy in anticipation of Mr. Right's arrival in the newsroom. No sooner had the sportswriter settled into his desk when Mr. P. danced over and asked if he had heard about the latest scandal. "What scandal?" Mr. Right asked, as if knowing the answer already. Mr. Peepers giggled like someone out of Reefer Madness. "What about Senator Craig?" he clarified.

"I'll tell you one thing," Mr. R. finally answered, "Conservatives resign. Liberals don't. That's because the end justifies the means for them when it comes to fighting conservatives."

That was before Craig made his incredible appearance later today (see http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20467347/). After that, Mr. Right revised his position. "The Republican leadership will make him resign," he predicted.

"Why would they do that?" I asked him. "Because he's apparently proven himself to be a terrible hypocrite," Right explained, "But I'll tell you one thing. There isn't a congressional district anywhere in the country where a Republican could get away with the sort of things that Barney Frank or Ted Kennedy have done and still get re-elected. What does that tell you?"

"I suppose it has a lot to do with the voters," I suggested. "I'd say it also has a lot to do with the Main Stream Media, but I have a feeling I'd get into an argument if I brought that up," Mr. Right concluded as he let the matter drop.

Mr. Right is convinced, as are many of his ilk, that a double standard prevails according to which Republicans are persecuted for offenses that would be ignored, if not applauded, if committed by Democrats. He attributes this to raw partisanship, of course, which only means that according to the Think 3 rulebook he damns himself, for our law is: if you accuse a person of partisanship simply because that person disagrees with your agenda, it's you who are partisan.

That aside, to blame partisanship misses a point he made himself. He presumes that the RNC will purge Craig because Craig has proven a hypocrite. That in itself explains much of the "double standard" that Mr. R perceives. Especially in matters involving sexual conduct, conservative Republicans set themselves up as paragons of traditional morality in a way that Democrats do not. Understandably, if an R and a D get caught in the same sort of sexual scandal, the D might get denounced for the deed, but the R will get denounced for hypocrisy besides. Maybe it isn't fair, but they only have themselves to blame, and people like Craig specifically must blame themselves for making their beds with the Religious Right. He could be a solid conservative on many issues, but he wanted the fast track to power, so instead of standing for himself as a conservative he allied himself with the Republicans, and thus with the Religious Right, and therefore dedicated himself, if the charge against him is true, to hypocrisy. That's the price he pays for trysting with the two-party system.