Mary Lyon, From The Left -- World News Trust
-- There are double standards and then there are double standards.
One of the latest ones is as obvious as a punch in the nose. Geraldine
Ferraro's comments about Barack Obama -- how he wouldn't be where he is
now if he weren't black -- are painfully obvious. Ouch. Their
undercurrent is a raw nerve in the American psyche. It's been one of
the most talked-about stories of Mississippi Primary Day. All over the
place, from radio to TV to the net and back again.
But that's just it. At least it's being talked about. We're openly
gnashing our teeth and rending our garments and everyone understands,
and understands why. Racism, the expression of it, and the
miscommunication about it, is broadly acknowledged for its gravity as a
painful problem across the country. Call it P.C., call it whatever. At
least it's out there on the table and openly dissected, recognized as
the most glaring shortcoming we collectively still just haven't quite
gotten over. But we have evolved as a society to the extent that we're
speaking about it in all company, polite or not.
On the other hand, there's another double standard that remains stuck
in the back of the bus. No one wants to look at it, speak of it, deal
with it in any way, or recognize it as a serious skeleton of injustice
in our closets. It's the matter of impeachment, specifically impeaching
Republicans. It seems we just don't dare go there. Granted, it's a
relatively recent imbalance compared to many generations of gnawing
race issues, but its obviously lopsided inequality is still well worth
noting.
How come it's the prominent Democrat who's threatened with impeachment
while the high-level Republican offender skates away scot-free? Once
the mess surrounding ethically-hobbled Governor Eliot Spitzer of New
York splattered all over the news, his opponents in the state
legislature from Assembly Republican leader James Tedisco onward
scrambled to every camera they could find, screaming an ultimatum -
"resign or we will impeach you." What's this? GOP politicians actively
flinging the "I-word" around in public? I wasn't sure they still
remembered the word. After all, they certainly haven't exercised it
much in the past seven-and-some years. These days it's the
Penalty- that- Must- Not- Be- Named.
They seem loathe to apply it to one of their own. They hem and haw,
they drag their feet, they change course, distract, deflect, make
excuses, and cloud the issue. Even as far back as Richard Nixon, who
came the closest to being a Republican target of impeachment still
managed to jump before he was pushed, thus avoiding the subject
entirely. Ronald Reagan had a near-miss with it over the Iran/Contra
scandal, but that's all it was - barely a flirtation.
On the other hand, we can hear roars of indignation against Democratic
blunderer Spitzer everywhere. Foaming Republican lathers billow forth
as though they were belching out of Lucy Ricardo's mishandled washing
machine in an old "I Love Lucy" rerun. Oh! The Humanity! And indeed --
it involves, oh mercy me, another sex scandal. Where have I heard this
kind of thing before? Spitzer, the Doghouse Dem du Jour, is hoist on
his own petard -- nailed on allegations of fishy fund transfers to what turns out to be a prostitution ring. I must admit to being a
little suspicious of the construction of the Spitzer bust. The moment
the term "wire-tapped" was injected, my first instinct was to suspect
the Bush administration of another political assassination -- perhaps
looking for enemies not just foreign but domestic. Casting a broad net
just for terrorists, or conveniently also adversaries of another,
homegrown stripe? Shades of Nixon and the legendary "enemies list."
It's not a difficult connection to make, since we do have a long and
distinguished track record across the GOP landscape of hit jobs galore
against political enemies, both inside and outside the White House.
We've had the fired U.S. Attorneys scandal, Valerie Plame, Don
Siegelman, Sibel Edmonds, and more. These people go thermo-nuclear. Or,
as Donald Rumsfeld once said, in exhorting coworkers just after 9/11 in
a scheme to link the 2001 TWin Tower attacks to Saddam Hussein and
Iraq: "go wide. Sweep it all up."
No waffling. "IMPEACHMENT NOW!" they howl. "We will accept no substitute."
So they can go after a Democratic powerhouse for his pecadillos, armed
with knives and forks, screeching for the ultimate political penalty.
This week Eliot Spitzer is in the barrel most recently occupied by one
Bill Clinton. Is that what it takes to be forced to face impeachment
these days? You have to be a Democrat, getting caught messing around
illicitly? You're far more likely to get a free pass if you're
Republican, it seems. Senator David Vitter was even caught patronizing
a brothel and no one called for his professional head. His colleague
Larry Craig is still standing (wide or otherwise). There are certainly
other GOP fiends who have yet to get what's coming to them, and for
flat-out impeachable offenses, whether sex was in the picture or not.
But the "I-word" is never uttered there.
How about lying about why we had to go to war in Iraq? Even George
Bush's own Pentagon has now completed an extensive review of
600-thousand Iraqi documents confiscated after the 2003 invasion that
finds absolutely no connection between Saddam and al Qaeda.
How about violating the Constitution of the United States 600-thousand
ways from Sunday - the same Constitution that one George W. Bush swore
twice to "preserve, protect, and defend"? How would years of illegal
wire-tapping on Americans, violating our privacy and suppressing our
dissent fit with that oath?
How about the "new" America that this White House has shown to the
world -- the one that tortures, "disappears" opponents, jails suspects
without explanation or the right to consult with a lawyer, and forces
our will and our view at gunpoint down the throats of other nations?
One whose word can no longer be trusted and motives are now deeply
suspect?
How about slapping a veil of phony secrecy on every paper, every email,
every phone message, every Secret Service log, and countless hush-hush
meetings, not to mention the hapless advisors and assistants now in
legal hot water because they've been told it's okay to defy the will,
summonses, or subpoenas, of Congress?
Or let's look at it another way. If a Democratic president had
perpetrated any or all of this, what would the reaction be? What would
Republicans say then? I'd guess that any one of these offenses would be
fiercely and relentlessly condemned as impeachable in that case. Heads
would roll, for sure. But if you're a Republican, you can drawl along
with a twangy send-up, cockily making light of such things, as happened
at this year's Gridiron dinner, and everyone in the room fawningly
chortles out loud.
I'm beyond fed up with double standards by now. The ones about skin
color and/or gender are bad enough. We've learned enough as a culture,
and have enough of a sense of outrage by now, to call them out as soon
as they even threaten to rear their ugly heads. But the only time
anyone says "peep" about impeachment is when it might be used to take
down a Democrat. A Republican at the top of the food chain can almost
suffocate under an avalanche of high crimes and misdemeanors, but they
only impeach Democrats, don't they?
***
Mary Lyon is a veteran broadcaster and five-time Golden Mike Award
winner who has anchored, reported, and written for the Associated Press
Radio Network, NBC Radio "The Source," and many Los Angeles-area
stations including KRTH-FM/AM, KLOS-FM, KFWB-AM, and KTLA-TV, and
occasional media analyst for ABC Radio News. Mary began her career as a
liberal activist with the Student Coalition for Humphrey / Muskie in
1968 and helped spearhead a regional campaign, The Power 18, to win the
right to vote for 18-year-olds. She remains an advocate for liberal
causes, responsibility and accountability in media, environmental
education and support of the arts for children, and green living. Mary
writes for Huffington Post, OpEdNews.com, Democrats.us, World News
Trust, and WeDemocrats.org's "We! The People" webzine. Mary is also a
parenting expert, having written and illustrated the book "The Frazzled
Working Woman's Practical Guide to Motherhood."