c. 2005 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) The indictment of Tom DeLay, R-Texas, in Austin Wednesday (Sept. 28), and his forced removal as House majority leader, is just the latest in a series of setbacks for the Republicans in Washington.

Other current legal-ethical troubles include the investigation of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist related to questionable stock dealings, the indictment and investigation of disgraced Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff, and the arrest of former White House budget official David Safavian, who has been charged with lying to investigators and obstructing justice in an investigation of Abramoff.

Meanwhile, the criminal investigation of who leaked the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame to the media continues; this investigation has reached into the highest levels of the White House.

These ethical problems are not the only issues dogging the Republicans right now. Competence concerns are also growing. These relate to the slow response to Hurricane Katrina (especially the performance of the Federal Emergency Management Agency), the planning of operations in Iraq, and overall worries related to the competence of the Department of Homeland Security. Another concern is whether the president’s sweeping plan for responding to Hurricane Katrina (and now Rita) reflects adequate concern for fiscal prudence and the long-term indebtedness of our nation.

There are perhaps three ways of responding to this pile of bad news.

One is to be a partisan Democrat and celebrate the Republican difficulties as a welcome comeuppance and an opportunity for political gain. Certainly one can see that some Democrats in Washington have already begun to pounce. They are already beginning to proclaim the wholesale corruption and incompetence of the Republicans. What is needed, they say, is to throw the rascals out and bring in the Democrat reformers who will clean things up once and for all.

At the other extreme is the partisan Republican response, which tends toward denial. There are no real problems. DeLay’s indictment was politically motivated. No current Republican has done anything immoral or illegal or could ever do anything immoral or illegal. FEMA did great after Hurricane Katrina _ it was all Gov. Kathleen Blanco’s or Mayor Ray Nagin’s fault. Everything is going wonderfully in Iraq. We’ve never been safer. The budget will be fine. All worries or investigations of Republicans are a Democrat/liberal media elite plot.

I’m glad that I don’t live in the Alice in Wonderland world of political true believers who can see only virtue on their side and only vice on the other. I would say that I don’t understand how anyone can live in that make-believe reality except that I think it really is understandable.

People view reality through prisms of their own making. One such prism is total, sold-out, true believer political loyalty. If that is your prism then you will interpret all data through its lenses. And that will lead to this imaginary world in which your side is always right and the other always wrong.

I was taught to reject wholeheartedly any such mentality. This teaching came from two sources. One was my father, who did policy analysis for the Congressional Research Service and knew partisan loyalty and self-interested delusions because he saw them every day. He instinctively expected them and corrected for them. It was his job.

But the other source of suspicion of sold-out, true-believer partisanship was and is my Christian faith. This may seem odd in a cultural context in which many Christians have folded their faith into their politics so neatly that there is no difference between them.

But I believe in original sin. I believe in human depravity. I believe in the infinite corruptibility of the human heart. I believe that power corrupts, and that money corrupts, and that money and power together corrupt especially well.

Democrats held power in the House for 40 years and by the end of that era their corruption was legendary. Republicans have now held power in Congress for 10 years, and in the White House for five years, and that is perhaps long enough for the inevitable corruption and decline that comes with largely unchecked power. And if the Republicans do get run out of office and Democrats do take charge again, it will be only a matter of time before the investigations turn again in their direction.

This idea should only be existentially threatening to those who are invested in the incredible notion that my people, my group, my party is incorruptible. A little biblical theology ought to take care of that notion in very short order.

MO/JL END RNS

(David P. Gushee is the Graves Professor of Moral Philosophy at Union University in Jackson, Tenn.)

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