I'm Rubber, You're Glue

Remember that tired old children's saying, "I'm rubber, you're glue. What ever you say bounces off me and sticks on you?" I was thinking on my Sunday AM long run about the modus operandi of the GOP. It seems that, fundamentally, GOP members opperate under this principle almost all the time. It's juvenile, for sure. Certainly, it's classic Rovian politics. But really the GOP is all about making rules or suggesting ethical standards by which it is only okay for GOP members to break (e.g. "we don't play the blame game"). Witness the number of people that will be or have been indicted or should be indicted that are members of the GOP.

More than a decade later, the roles are reversed. As the party in power, Republicans now are under fire for ethical problems ranging from Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham pleading guilty last week to taking $2.4 million in bribes, to the mushrooming scandal involving GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff, to former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's indictment on charges of violating campaign finance laws. And Democrats hope to take advantage when voters go to the polls for the midterm elections next year.

But some say no matter who is caught in the criminal net, the corruption issues put a spotlight on the pervasive influence of money in politics.

"It seems to be kind of cyclical," said Melanie Sloan, a former assistant U.S. attorney and executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a watchdog group. "The Republicans took over the House in large part making the case that they would clean up the House, where there had been a lot of ethics scandals. ... Here we are now, 10 or 11 years later, and apparently they learned nothing from all of that."