Seven to One
I enjoy Harper’s index. While I found the two following factoids noteworthy, they hardly came as a surprise:
Number of local Republican officials who have been investigated by the U.S. Department of Justice since 2001: 37Number of local Democratic officials who have been: 262
Naturally, one has to take factoids with skepticism, because they lack potentially significant context. Maybe there’s good reason for this discrepancy. Maybe the Democrats outnumber the Republicans by seven to one in local government. Maybe the Democrats are seven times as crooked. Maybe the crooked Democrats are no more numerous than crooked Republicans, just seven times as careless about leaving evidence around.
Maybe my Aunt Matilda is the Tooth Fairy.
A discrepancy of three to two, or even two to one is just within the realm of plausibility for an impartial Justice Department. A discrepancy of three or four to one begins to look like favoritism. A discrepancy of seven to one approaches criminal abuse of power. In light of the current scandal over firing eight U.S. attorneys insufficiently willing to cooperate with Republican election campaigns, such abuse sounds simply like business as usual in Washington, part of the general strategy championed by Tom Delay of doing everything possible to establish reliable party supporters in every office at every level of government, and then to use that leverage to cement control over the political process, including future elections.
No specific issue, or even collection of issues is sufficiently important to warrant destruction of our political process in order to insure the “right” people are in power to make the “right” decisions about the issues. Not abortion, not Iraq, not trade regulation, not gay rights, not anything. Although I denounce one-issue voters—precisely because they tend to overlook government abuse in the interest of their cause—this comes close to a single issue commanding my vote. Politicians who undermine democracy, even in a good cause (and the current administration isn’t even operating in good cause), can do America more harm than politicians who are wrong about everything else.
As the bumper sticker goes, if you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention.