EDITORIAL | UPDATED NOVEMBER 1

LANCE FRY / Scroll

There’s no such thing as a perfect political party

by Peter Nguyen NGU04002@BYUI.EDU Scroll Staff

As it turns out, there is no such thing as a perfect political party. Democrats are seen as being morally licentious and the Republicans are plagued with allegations, resignations, indictments, low polling and an unfavorable war. Who wants to be part of a political party anymore?

Many Americans, especially in the Western region of the United States, consider Republicans the morally divine party, but with recent turmoil many are fondly considering independence.

Even the radical Christian right, who are often the Republican main support, have been unhappy with the Republican Party.

Their scorn of Harriet Miers, former Supreme Court nominee, led many conservative senators to withdraw their support.

Many Christian advocate groups, including the Family Research Council, ran campaigns to cast doubts on Miers’ stance on abortion, suggesting that she would support the standing ruling on Roe v. Wade for abortion.

If Protestant Christendom won’t lead the Republicans to salvation, who will?

Well, one person who’s not going to be saving anyone is Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief aide.

Libby has been indicted on criminal charges involving the leak of a CIA operative’s name. The 22-page indictment alleges Libby committed five crimes — one count of obstruction of justice of the federal grand jury, two counts of perjury and two counts of false statements, according to Fox News. And that’s who we have in the White House. It certainly doesn’t foster much confidence, does it?

It doesn’t stop there for the Republicans, though. It seems as though the entire top brass of the Republican Party has seen better days. Tom DeLay stepped down as house majority leader when he was arrested on charges involving money laundering and criminal conspiracy.

Bill Frist, the senate majority leader, is under investigation for insider trading. Karl Rove, one of President Bush’s top advisors, narrowly dodged an indictment but is still under criminal investigation, for the same crimes that Libby was indicted on.

Oh the horror! The horror! When is this corruption going to end? Won’t someone please think of the children?

Won’t someone please tell all of those hippie protesters to go home and let the president do his job? He needs peace and quiet to figure out how to improve his 55 percent disapproval rating.

What about the Democrats? What needs to be said? They’re Democrats. Who wants to associate with abortion-loving Democrats?

Are things as bad as they seem? Of course they aren’t. We live in America and our justice system is great. That’s how these prominent Republicans were caught.

What’s the moral of the story? John Adams’ wife, Abigail, was right when she said that every man, if he had the opportunity, would be a tyrant. The founders of the Constitution were right to place restrictions on government and corruption can be found everywhere, Republican or Democrat.