The New York Times Discovers Congressional Ethics - The American Spectator | USA News and Politics
The New York Times Discovers Congressional Ethics
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One of the tedious chores that must be performed by any conscientious member of the commentariat involves perusing America’s “newspaper of record.” Despite its dishonest reporting, the Times provides a useful preview of the spin that will be adopted by the corporate media on major news stories. To be fair, the Gray Lady does contain one section that offers some respite from an otherwise painful read. Its opinion page is a rich source of comic relief. A recent example is a thigh-slapper in which the editorial board asks, “Why Is George Santos Still in Office?”

The editorial was prompted by an indictment that was unsealed last Wednesday charging Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) with a variety of offenses relating to the way he financed his 2022 congressional campaign. The freshman congressman has denounced the indictment as a witch hunt and flatly refuses to resign. Consequently, the Times editorial board insists that the only honorable path for Republicans is to join their Democratic colleagues and expel Santos from the House. They claim that, while many members of that body have been ethically challenged, Santos has scaled heights of corruption heretofore unseen on Capitol Hill:

Mr. Santos is different from other members of Congress who have demonstrated moral failures, ethical failures, failures of judgment and blatant corruption and lawbreaking in office. What he did was to deceive the very voters who brought him to office in the first place, undermining the most basic level of trust between an electorate and a representative. These misdeeds erode the faith in the institution of Congress and the electoral system through which American democracy functions.

To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, it’s hard to read this passage without dissolving into tears of laughter. Santos did “deceive the very voters who brought him to office,” but by this standard, the editors of the Times should demand the expulsion of nearly every Democrat in Congress. At the very least they should demand the expulsion of Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who lied to the voters for years about the Russia collusion hoax. Moreover, they should insist on the impeachment of President Biden, who ran for office as a moderate unifier, yet has governed as a far left radical who portrays half of American voters as violent extremists.

The Times belabors Santos’ whoppers about his résumé, yet he can’t hold a candle to Biden when it comes to lying about his background. Biden has lied about his education, bragging that he graduated in the top half of his class at law school when he graduated 76th in a class of 85. He has claimed that he once drove a tractor-trailer for a living, yet another lie. He claimed he was once arrested while protesting for civil rights. That was a particularly egregious whopper considering his well-documented record of opposing desegregation. As NBC News reported in 2019 when Biden was about to launch his third presidential campaign:

In 1975, Biden was representing a state where one of the first major urban school desegregation plans had been ordered by a court. Many white parents in the Wilmington area were angry. In response, Biden sponsored not just the bill limiting courts’ power but also an amendment to an appropriations bill that barred the federal government from withholding funding from schools that remained effectively segregated.

The editorial board at the Times also left out an intriguing fact about the history of House expulsions — every congressman expelled from the House since the founding of the republic was a Democrat: Reps. John B. Clark (D-Mo.), John W. Reid (D-Mo.) and Henry C. Burnett (D-Ky.) were removed in 1861 for “Disloyalty to the Union; fighting for the Confederacy.” These people were expelled for participating in a genuine insurrection. Rep. Michael J. Myers (D-Pa.) was expelled in 1980 after  being convicted of bribery. Rep. James Traficant (D-Ohio) was expelled after being convicted of multiple crimes, including bribery.

So, of the five people who have been expelled from the house, all were Democrats and none — not one — were Republicans. Anyone see a pattern here? Those of us who read the New York Times, so you don’t have to, regard the chore as a patriotic duty. It’s important to stay up-to-date on all the propaganda fit to print. And sometimes it’s good for a laugh. The pompous moralizing of the Times editorial board has nothing to do with ethics. What really worries them is that Santos is behaving like a Democrat and the GOP leadership is counting votes instead of caving. How do we know it’s a good strategy? Mitt Romney wants Santos to resign.

David Catron
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David Catron is a recovering health care consultant and frequent contributor to The American Spectator. You can follow him on Twitter at @Catronicus.
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