Sara and I are heading to Massachusetts this weekend for my brother-in-law’s sister’s wedding, or my sister-in-law’s sister-in-law’s wedding, or Sara’s sister’s sister-in-law’s…you get the idea.  When we get back I’m going to have to hit the books very hard next week so I can’t guarantee any posting for at least a week and a half or so.  For now, though, I’ll leave you with some sudden thoughts surrounding the Mark Foley “scandal”. 

I never really care to pay attention to such “scandals” when they arise.  It generally seems to be a waste of time and a distraction from the much bigger picture.  It’s as if, every few months, one of these guys gets locked out of the country club of corruption and is made an example of while all the others lock up their houses and sweep their dirt under their rugs.

I don’t know many great details of the “scandal” or what Democrats have being saying about it, but I have noticed a lot of the Republican response consists of downplaying it by merely complaining that Democrats have manipulated and/or leaked the whole thing for political gain.   I also just recently came across an Associated Press blurb about a speech Newt Gingrich gave Wednesday in which he defensively said Democrats have done far worse things than sending lurid Internet messages to male teenage pages, and he is quoted saying,

“What we don’t have to do is allow our friends on the left to lecture us on morality” … “There’s a certain stench of hypocrisy.”

His statements just rub me the wrong way, and they are very telling of many politician’s refusal to humbly admit wrong without pointing the finger back at their enemies somehow; always blaming someone or something else.  Whether the Democrats have any right to lecture or not matters not; nor does the level of the indecency or what others have done.  This is like the instinctive argument of a child who tries to somehow cover his fault by saying “But he started it!” or “but so-and-so did this”, implying ”this” was much worse than what he did as if that nullifies the fault somehow. 

Part of me feels like the Republicans are reeping a litte bit of what they’ve sown here too.  Perhaps we can see this as a real-life illustration that highlights Christ’s imperative, Do not judge, or you too will be judged. (Matt. 7:1).  While, on the surface, the Democrats may seem to be guilty of this, and Gingrich essentially suggested that in the quote above, the problem is Republicans certainly first found it advantageous to use Bill Clinton’s unscrupulous behavior to draw a distinction between themselves and the Democrats based upon ”morals” and “character”.  And as Matthew 7 goes on to say in verse 2, For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.