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August 28, 2007
A Laughingstock
These are not salad days for the Republican Party. With an unpopular president limping toward the finish line of his second term, a mass exodus underway among White House officials, a disastrous situation in Iraq, and a weak 2008 presidential field, the GOP faithful have lost their groove. Oh, and then there are the scandals.
As if Jack Abramoff, Duke Cunningham, Mark Foley, and our Texas favorite, Tom DeLay didn't do enough damage to their party during the 2006 election cycle, a whole new group of Republican leaders are carrying the torch right into 2008.
Let's see, we've had Louisiana Senator David Vitter, eschewing his "Christian values" to frequent prostitutes, Alaska Senator Ted Stevens ensnared in a corruption scandal back home (his son, the former head of the Alaska State Senate, has got troubles too), and Arizona Congressman Rick Renzi, who is "retiring" from Congress facing a federal investigation into his family insurance business.
Then there's Thomas Ravenel, the South Carolina Treasurer and erstwhile state chair of Rudy Giuliani's presidential campaign, who was indicted on federal cocaine distribution charges, and Bob Allen, the Florida state representative and now former state co-chair of the John McCain presidential campaign who was arrested for soliciting sex from an undercover male police officer in a public bathroom.
And now there's Larry Craig. When your principal quote in a national front-page story is "I am not gay", you are not having a good day. And to think, he had just recorded a video explaining his support of Mitt Romney's presidential campaign. (Hey, at least these guys are spreading the love across the GOP presidential field.)
It seems there is just one Republican scandal after another, and we haven't even mentioned the litany of investigations of Bush administration officials in recent months. We'll go out on a limb and suggest that this string of bad news isn't exactly boosting morale among GOP activists, nor is it likely attracting converts to the cause. Sheryl Gay Stolberg confirms our suspicions in a piece running in tomorrow's Times.
Today's Republican Party -- a laughingstock.
Posted by houtopia at August 28, 2007 09:46 PM