Side Effects of the Culture of Corruption Argument

Over at The Corner, Jay Nordlinger says this:

Our colleague Rick Brookhiser made an observation, some months ago: When Eliot Spitzer fell, he fell hard. Barely a week after he resigned, he seemed something like dead — gone. As though he had never existed. And he was governor of New York — a rising star in the national Democratic party, a possible future president. (Would have been the first Jewish president.)

Anyway, I thought of this when having a conversation today about John Edwards. Two seconds ago, he was a very big deal. For heaven’s sake, he was the last Democratic vice-presidential nominee. And he now seems — a thousand years ago.

That’s because when a Republican gets embroiled in a scandal, Democrats and their accomplices in the media keep it on the front page for as long as they possibly can as part of their “Culture of Corruption” meme. Republicans don’t do that because we realize that there are real people involved behind the scenes that don’t deserve to be treated with such disdain.