| The latest corruption news comes out of Detroit - its mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick, was charged for perjury for lying about an affair with a top aide in an investigation over whether Kilpatrick used city security to cover up the affair.
The mayor of Detroit is - surprise! - a Democrat.
That's the byline of a number of conservative blogs today.
Here's the thing, party affiliation is largely irrelevant in this case. Why? A couple of reasons.
If, say, Kilpatrick's party was well known for touting "character" as a prerequisite for office, claiming that it was the party of personal responsibility and morality, well, that'd be a story! Or if the politician involved touted, say, "family values" and voted against gay rights at every step, then was caught trolling for blow jobs in a public bathroom, well, party affiliation would matter!
Or, say, the corruption in the case were part of a larger pattern that connected to the poltician's party affiliation, well, then affiliation is relevant. Say, oh, I don't know, the party spun off a lobbyist who put relatives of politicians in key positions at industries across the country, demanded that those industries give money only to his party, bribed politicians and their staffers (luxury trips, say?), to enact legislation on behalf of "loyal" clients, well, that would be a story!
Just as revelations that Rudy Giuliani, while mayor of NYC, used taxpayer money to provide security for his trips to Long Island weren't about the political party he belonged to - that particular brand of corruption belonged to Giuliani, not his party - so, too, is Kilpatrick's brand of ethics solely his.
To make hay of that - well, it's a long-standing conservative strategy to attack where you, yourself, are weak. I'll just leave it at that. |
