Trying to find honest politicians
 | Rob Crowe
Columnist
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I was talking to a friend of mine the other day and she made the statement that I'm sure you all have heard at one time or other, and I'm paraphrasing a bit here, "All politicians end up crooked."
This was one of my favorite Democrats speaking. She is one of my election judges and also one of the real sources of information when election day rolls around. She (and most of the other judges) knows almost everyone who comes through the door, very helpful when one is trying to decipher if the voter, unregistered but wanting to vote, is a resident and eligible to vote. She has rightfully turned many away that hadn't come to the right precinct, she is not often fooled.
But I digress, getting back to her statement, I wasn't sure if she was referring to any specific politician. The statement was fairly inclusive of all, she didn't differentiate between our respective parties. I did take the opportunity to disagree. The partisan politicians I'm most likely to encounter on the streets of my district are the local representative and senator, incidentally both happen to be Democrats. While I could find several areas of disagreement with both, I have absolutely no evidence to even hint that either are dishonest, in fact I believe the opposite is true. Both are individuals who have well served the needs of the area and been re-elected with substantial margins.
I told my friend that I considered Loren Solberg and Tom Saxhaug to be honest men, hence her statement doesn't apply to all. I'm acquainted with many Republican politicians who are likewise honest. For the record, I still intend to wage vigorous campaigns for the previously mentioned politician's seats with my own party's candidates whenever possible.
There are, however, a few politicians around who are, let's say, ethically challenged or worse. We've had a few in the Republican Party, the most recent of note being Representative Mark Foley of Florida. This individual evidently was showing a perverted interest in male pages, a rather benign but troubling e-mail he wrote to a page was reportedly procured by the Democrat dirty tricks division and shopped to the press.
Soon after that was reported, a set of instant messages with lewd language was produced. When that hit the light of day, Foley was immediately asked to resign by Denny Hasert, Republican Speaker of the House. Foley resigned, but the press and the Democratic party managed to keep the controversy alive up until election day, calling for the resignation of Speaker Hasert and every Republican who was even remotely involved with Foley. Incidentally, there is no evidence to conclude that physical contact ever occurred between Foley and any page. As he should be, he is gone, unfortunately he will probably show up on the celebrity book circuit someday.
This is quite a bit different than the treatment Gerry Studds, the Democrat representative who, in the '70s, actually had sex with a male page. He was merely censured, never asked to resign by the Democratic speaker, no one called for the Democratic Speaker to resign, Studds was re-elected as representative several times after the incident, in fact he died of natural causes shortly after the Foley affair came to the light of day and leading Democrats eulogized him by calling him "courageous." Am I missing something here? The Badge of Courage is for someone doing something heroic, not for sexual exploits.
The local Democrat apologists took time out of their busy schedules to castigate the Republicans for the Foley affair but somehow or other neither referenced the Studds affair. Must have been their sense of fair play. One of the writers really had no moral leg to stand on, that being the one who defended Bill Clinton's dallying with an intern in the oval office on the grounds that it was just sex. Or maybe that it wasn't sex. Whatever.
As we should have, Republicans took some big hits in the recent election due to a problem of not living up to high expectations on the ethical front. Though I think most Democrat politicians are ethical and honest, however they don't appear to be in charge on the national level. The Democrats are taking over and promising a change. However, with the ethically challenged Harry Reid in charge in the Senate and Nancy Pelosi trying to insert Abscam co-conspirator Jack Murtha into leadership in the House, a need to lower expectations is in order.
Rob Crowe chairs the Aitkin County Republicans and raises kids and cows on a farm near Hill City.
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