Saturday, January 31, 2004

The Weak in (National) Review:Byron York's Own Cave-Blindness - In his latest piece on the current status of the investigation into how internal Democratic Judiciary Committee Member memos were leaked to the public calls for tit-for-tat. York, in his admirable quest for equal justice, thinks not only that the GOP should pay a price for its indiscretion, but also that the Democrat collusion exposed in the memos should also lead to a price that the Democratic Party should pay for its antics. York says it best himself:

"If the memos leak merited the intense investigation that has been going on for months, then certainly the behavior described in the memos deserves scrutiny as well.

It's only fair."
York's naivete here is a bit surprising. What York fails to consider is that the GOP is also likely protecting itself by not going after the Democrats here. I would bet the farm that Senate Republicans on the Judiciary Committee are just as guilty of the type of "collusion" with their own special interest lobbies that York wants the Democrats investigated for. To go after the Democrats for their admittedly less-than-admirable collusion with special interests regarding the judicial nominee and approval process that these memos exhibit would make it acceptable for the GOP and its collusion with special interests to be likewise put on exhibit by the Democrats. And if the Democrats have similar dirt on the GOP, its revelation would make the GOP out to be actually more reprehensible in their duplicity and hypocrisy. I happen to think such dirt on the GOP exists (whether the Democrats have it or not), and the GOP thus can't risk having its own dirty behavior potentially exposed in retaliation for an attack on the behavior described in the Democrat memos -- otherwise, why wouldn't the GOP demand the fairness that Byron York calls for?

No comments: