Victorious Democrats should burn this fact into their brains as they prepare to take control of the U.S. Senate and House in January.
Exit polls showed the top concern of 41 percent of voters in the Nov. 7 election was corruption. They are demanding more ethical behavior in Washington.
Yet, as if deaf to the message, Democrats are faltering in their promise of a new reign of squeaky-clean transparency.
Some Democrats are reluctant to create an independent ethics oversight office that would be free to expose the sort of behavior that essentially cost Republicans power. Some Democrats claim they can police themselves. That either is a Pollyanna delusion or a clumsy effort to keep loopholes in ethics enforcement. The House ethics committee is dysfunctional at best, corrupt at worst.
House Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi also did no favor for herself or the party when she fought unsuccessfully for Rep. John Murtha as House Majority Leader. Despite his credentials as a critic of the Iraq war, he has a reputation for winking at ethics. He figured in the 1970s Abscam bribery scandal; he called ethical reform "a lot of crap" and has steered government business to a brother. That's hardly consistent with Pelosi's promise of unprecedented purity under Democratic rule.
Pelosi also toyed with the idea of naming Rep. Alcee Hastings as House intelligence committee chairman—a former federal judge accused of bribery and driven from the bench by Senate impeachment. Again, hardly a sign of reform.
If Democrats won't deliver ethics reform, voters who've given them this chance can as easily rout them from office in just two years as they did Republicans this month.
