The Party of the Big Tent (or, the party that doesn’t know who or what it is ..take your pick) finds itself in the position where it’s ‘go to’ message for the last 25 years appears to lack the benefits that it once did. ‘The Party of Family Values” and “The Party of the Sanctity of Marriage” or ..well, the list goes on and on and it all revolves around the GOP’s insistence on ownership of the socalled ‘moral high ground’.

The list of elected officials from the GOP who have been arrested, caught, snagged, mentioned, what have you, in terms of extramarital stuff, underage stuff, kinky whatevers and so on just keeps getting longer and longer (hey, Hugh…where’s your list..you’ve been keeping count, right?). The only problem is that now that they have decided, what with the whole Governor Sanford Takes A Trip thing, that they need to evaluate whether or not this message holds much in the way of currency for them at this time.

“The GOP, to be certain, will never get to a point where it willfully cedes the moral high ground to Democrats. The social and religious conservatives who comprise a large and vocal portion of the base won’t permit such a drift. Nor, for that matter, does it make political sense. The failings of Sanford and others, they argue, were isolated and personal events and not reflective of the party as a whole.
"It is a personal tragedy that he talked about some length," said Frank Donatelli, chairman of GOPAC, a conservative political action committee, and former political director for President Ronald Reagan. "But I don’t know that it has implications beyond that."

Sanford Affair Sparks GOP Discussions

“Isolated and personal events and not reflective of the party as a whole”?

Really? Do we need to start reminding them (oh, please do..I thought you’d never ask)? Isolated and personal events…like"

Gingrich and his multiple wives (Number one was one of his high school teachers; one of whom worked in his office and with whom he was having an affair while he was eviscerated Bill Clinton for his activities with Monica Lewinsky?).

Rudy Giuliani and HIS multiple wives (it’s all so confusing…number one was his wife for like 13 years and then he discovered, OH NOES, she’s his cousin and he got that pedophile priest to plead his case for the annulment so that he could marry the TV person and then he threw her over while he was having an affair with that nurse that did demonstrations with live dogs…).

Rep. Henry Hyde and his breaking up the marriage of Mr. And Mrs. Snodgrass.

Rep. Dan Burton whose skirt chasing, out of wedlock fathering of a son in 1983, and paying his daughter what was considered at the time an outrageous amount of money to run his campaign office made him a figure of some controversy.

Rep. Mark Foley, whose unremitting underage page-chasing not only brought himself down but also took Speaker of the House Dennis Haestert down with him because even though Republican House leadership had documentation of his activities..they never did anything about it until one of the pages reported it to his local newspaper and his parents notified the FBI. Oh, yes..right; his parents notified the FBI, so THAT’s family values, right?

Senator Larry Craig, whose regular trolling of public men’s bathrooms made him a target – this is the guy who already made ‘wide stance’ a watchword for the Republican party. That ‘secret handshake’ has now been joined by ‘Hiking the Appalachian Trail’.

Senator John Ensign, who conducted a long standing affair with an employee, married to another employee and who paid his mistress AND her husband AND their son out of party funds to basically shut them up.

And now we have Governor Mark Sanford who has fully and openly admitted to an affair with someone from outside the country, using government money for his ‘nooky trips’, and who basically left his state without any leadership because he decided he was going to sneak off. One can only be grateful that there had not been a hurricane brewing in that part of the Atlantic because the State Army Reserve reports to him. The Lt. Governor had not been left in charge. Sanford’s admitted to seeing his mistress on multiple occasions and obviously from all the emails that have emerged, was in regular and rather steamy contact with her.

And we won’t bother to go (mostly because Hugh has that list someplace) looking for all the local GOP’rs with tastes in kinky sex, underage kids(of either/or/both genders), or, in the latest deal, running around drunk and in the nude.

Listen, the Democrats have their own box of worms to deal with. But we don’t go around holding ourselves up as being the bastions of purity and family values or being the bulwark protecting society from goodness only knows what disaster. The Democrats also don’t go around comparing themselves to Biblical figures in a self-serving, twisted sort of way to try to make their stories somehow seem a little less tawdry. The Democrats also don’t go around saying ‘this group of people over here do not deserve to have happiness in their relationship lives…but ME – oh, I deserve whatever happiness I can grab with both hands." We also don’t get up when we get caught and publicly make excuses about ‘breaking God’s laws’ or ‘I’m going into rehab’. That’s just weeny whiner crap.

Isolated and personal events?

Sorry, guys – in all these cases, we had elected officials who behaved in this way for a very long time and turned what should have been private/personal activities into public issues – AND it might not have been ‘reflective OF’ the GOP but it sure as hell has ‘reflected ON" the party.

And one of the biggest reflections is that you guys are more than enthusiastic about wrapping yourselves in that ‘family values and purity’ flag – but you never, ever are willing to clean your own house or police your own. You are more than ready to dump truckloads of shit on Democrats for their personal peccadilloes – you are more than enthused to go after (and perhaps even aid and abet entrapment – I’m talking to you Roger Stone and Maurice Greenberg vis a vis Elliot Spitzer) anyone who does not agree with you.

But police your own and clean your own house? Nope. Never heard of it. You guys have a blind eye to all of it.

And THAT, is what is reflective of the GOP.