When is a Political Scandal not a Scandal?

Cartoon: Dan Wasserman, Boston Globe

Partisan politics play an important, if unpleasant, role in western democracies. There is entertainment value as the media impress on its public the latest escapades of the targeted politician, to the embarrassment of the victim  and his political party and the schaudenfreude of his political opponents.

Washington DC has played host to many political scandals. Arguably, the greatest was the unseating of Richard Nixon as president in 1974, as the Democrats in Congress made Nixon’s life unbearable, joined by their Republican colleagues when defence of the President became hopeless.

Over the New Year, two scandals were unearthed on Capitol Hill, when the transgressions of two Republican congressmen hit the headlines. The first, Michael Grimm (R-Ohio), pleaded guilty to federal tax-evasion charges. Correctly, the Republican leadership moved quickly to oust Grimm from office. A man who owns up to a felony cannot remain a legislator. So far, so good.

The second individual, Steve Scalise, (R-La), acknowledged that in 2002 he addressed a white-supremacist group. Scalise, the House Majority Whip, received the support of the Republican leadership despite the possibility that yet another racial controversy might have potential political fallout for the 2016 election.

So far, the Democrats have exploited the issue but have not called for Scalise’s ouster. Nancy Pelosi, the House Minority Leader, characterised the incident as “deeply troubling” and cited as racist the Republicans’ recent failure to re-authorise elements of the Voting Rights Act, as well as  their challenge to the President’s executive orders to change immigration policy.

I find myself in a strange position, that of supporting a Republican legislator. Scalise did indeed address the European-American Unity and Rights Organization, founded by ex- Klansman David Duke, at a conference in 2002, when he was a Louisiana legislator. However, there have been no reports of what Scalise actually said. Nor have the Democrats shown that Scalise repeated his attendance of white-supremacy meetings over the ensuing twelve years.

Furthermore, neither the EAURO, nor the KKK, nor even the John Birch Society, are proscribed by the government under American law. Were this to happen, the American Civil Liberties Union would undoubtedly protest and commence a law suit against the government.

American are rightly proud and protective of their right to free speech, even if the words spoken run contra to everything they believe. In 1922, Republican President Warren Harding visited Alabama, where he spoke to an exclusively white audience. He told the group, “If American equality does not mean legal and political equality for blacks, then American democracy is a sham.” Unsurprisingly, the speech enraged the southern press. Who is to say that Scalise did not deliver a similar message? Unlikely, I grant you, as he remained a legislator but the Democrats cannot be on solid ground if they rely solely on Scalise’s attendance to dub him racist.

If this attempt to unseat Scalise is the best the Democrats can do, the Republicans will hardly be shaking in their boots.