A Scandal-Scarred G.O.P. Asks, ‘What Next?’ "How Low Can You Go?"(NYT)

[kpete]

A Scandal-Scarred G.O.P. Asks, ‘What Next?’


By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
Published: August 29, 2007
WASHINGTON, Aug. 28 — Scott Reed, a Republican strategist, was at a dinner in Philadelphia on Monday night when his cellphone and Internet pager began beeping like crazy. Only later did he learn why. His party was buzzing with news of a sex scandal involving a Republican United States senator — again.

Just when Republicans thought things could not get any worse, Senator Larry E. Craig of Idaho confirmed that he had pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of disorderly conduct after an undercover police officer accused him of soliciting sex in June in a Minneapolis airport restroom. On Tuesday, Mr. Craig, 62, held a news conference to defend himself, calling the guilty plea “a mistake” and declaring, “I am not gay” — even as the Senate Republican leadership asked for an Ethics Committee review.

...............

Forget Mark Foley of Florida, who quit the House last year after exchanging sexually explicit e-mail messages with under-age male pages, or Jack Abramoff, the lobbyist whose dealings with the old Republican Congress landed him in prison. They are old news, replaced by a fresh crop of scandal-plagued Republicans, men like Senator David Vitter of Louisiana, whose phone number turned up on the list of the so-called D.C. Madam, or Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska and Representative Rick Renzi of Arizona, both caught up in F.B.I. corruption investigations.

It is enough to make a self-respecting Republican want to tear his hair out in frustration, especially as the party is trying to defend an unpopular war, contain the power of the new Democratic majority on Capitol Hill and generate some enthusiasm among voters heading toward the presidential election in 2008.

“The real question for Republicans in Washington is how low can you go, because we are approaching a level of ridiculousness,” said Mr. Reed, sounding exasperated in an interview on Tuesday morning. “You can’t make this stuff up. And the impact this is having on the grass-roots around the country is devastating. Republicans think the governing class in Washington are a bunch of buffoons who have total disregard for the principles of the party, the law of the land and the future of the country.”

more at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/29/us/politics/29repubs.html?ex=1346040000&en=e389ed43ad45b35b&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

[Joanne98]

1. How looowww can u goooooo!!!!!!K&R!

[lapfog_1]

6. Anyone want to make a YouTube video

with a limbo (or maybe Limbaugh) line of republicans easily passing under the stick while the steel pan drums play in the background (and the vertical sticks should be calibrated with greed, corruption, lying, etc, down to war crimes, rape, and murder)?

And the MC calls out "How Low Can You Go???" (get that guy that used to do the 7-UP commercial and was in one of the Bond films - with his trademark Hahahahahahaha - Ha)

[ccpup]

2. and what's beautiful about this

is the sex scandals of the GOP aren't the result of a $40 million fishing expedition with the Opposition Party fanning the flames trying to bring attention to it. The repugs are doing it to themselves -- or paying someone else to do it to them (sorry, couldn't resist) -- and really can't blame the Dems for any of this, although I'm sure they'll try.

If I were someone who defended the repugs as a party of strong moral and family values, I'd be hanging my head in confused shame right about now.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

3. Good Read

Thank you.

The political environment is ripe for a candidacy akin to Jimmy Carter's "I'll never lie to you" and "I'll give America a government as good as its people" campaign of 1976... Campaigns are usually won by those who best understand the political environment...

I have empathy for Vitter, Foley, Craig, and all these conflicted souls who get caught up in this whirlwind but I would be a hypocrite if I said I didn't want to see the "party of God" stumble...

[Beausoir]

4. Good post. n/t

[DemocratSinceBirth]

5. I Couldn't Vote In That Campaign But Rosalyn Carter Came To Our High School During The Florida

Primary...

My precocious friend who went on to be a uber successful trial lawyer asked her some esoteric question that stumped her...

Anyway, Jimmy Carter had a masterful theme for that campaign but even with the great theme and the residue of Watergate handicapping the Republicans he would have lost if 30,000 votes in Hawaii and Ohio went the other way...

That shows me no matter how far ahead we are we have work to do...

As an aside I am not so naive to think some of our leaders don't have their own skeletons in their closets... I just think as the more tolerant party we have less to worry about when it comes to repressed behavior becoming manifest...

Go Dems....

PEACE
DSB

[Psst_Im_Not_Here]

7. Amen! n/t

N/T

[The Backlash Cometh]

8. "governing class in Washington"

Does anybody have any illusions that this behavior is limited to Republicans in Washington?

[Lil Missy]

9. With bushco setting the standard, there is a lot of leeway

[EVDebs]

10. GOP "Limbo lower now..." eom

[calimary]

11. How low can you go? How many you got?

Especially when YOU, GOPers, are the ones making such a big stink about "family values"... Nice glass houses you all live in.

[mentalsolstice]

12. Well, it is called the 'low-down" for a reason. eom