The response of the Democratic Party to their recent flood of ethics embarrassments tells us all we need to know about why the ethics problems exist in this Congress and will doubtless continue. It has, predictably, resorted to the time-tested, playground strategy I like to call the “Hypocrisy Defense,” which aims at avoiding accountability by accusing the accusers. Other names for the Hypocrisy Defense: “Changing the Subject,” “The Incorrigible Scoundrel’s Last Hope,” “The Guilty Condemning the Convicted,” and “Making Yourself Look Less Dirty By Throwing Mud on the Other Guy.” If that’s the best you have, all it shows is that your accusers, hypocritical or not, are telling the truth. Because when you accuse the pot of calling the kettle black, its still means that you are a filthy kettle.

The gist of the Democratic counter-offensive, contained in a new press release from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, is that the Republicans have no right to trumpet Democratic ethical shortcomings because they have been corrupt as well. The “logic” of this is visceral rather than real: Really? We really are supposed to believe that when a party takes over from one that disgraced itself with corruption and promises to “drain the ethical swamp,” and then fails miserably, the party that was ejected for its corruption cannot reasonably point that failure out to the public? If not the other party, who is going to focus light on it? The DCCC’s argument is audaciously irresponsible. It says, “Let us continue to have a tax cheat, likely felon and deeply conflicted Congressman continue to chair the House Ways and Means Committee, because the Republicans have crooks too.”

The release insults the intelligence of readers at least as much as it assails Republicans, while making it crystal clear that whoever wrote and approved the text doesn’t care a fig about ethics, only politics. Let’s examine this section, for example:

“While Republicans hypocritically try to make ethics an issue, they would be well served to remember a few facts…”

Comment: Uh, ethics IS an issue; nobody should have to make it one in an ethical environment. One only feels that it is being “made” an issue when one regards having to pay attention to ethics as an annoyance rather than an obligation, which is exactly what this release reveals about the Democrats. There is nothing hypocritical about anyone, in politics or in any other profession, making ethics an issue, because honesty, fairness, competence and trustworthiness are essential. Making ethics an issue is simply good and responsible conduct; it is ethical itself. The Democratic logic is that formerly unethical people should never advocate ethics. Think about that.

“It is the Democrats who passed and enacted historic ethics reform that broke the link between lobbyists and legislators: no gifts, no private jets, and no meals from lobbyists.”

Comment: HA!  Can you believe Democrats have the brass to argue this? “Broke the link”!!! BROKE THE LINK??? The pathetic House Ethics Committee just airily dismissed the PMA Group lobbying scandal  because, it said, in a report that will live in infamy, the mere fact that huge cash amounts have been  funneled into House members’ campaign war chests in close proximity to those same House members designating million dollar earmarks with the same donors as the contractors doesn’t mean there was any quid pro quo. How did William Jefferson end up with $90,000 in his freezer if the Democrats “broke the link”? The Democrats passed cosmetic and disingenuous, not “historic,” ethics reforms that just meant that unethical Democrats (and Republicans!) had to get enriched by lobbyist money in new and different ways. And they have.

“It is the Democrats who established the Office of Congressional Ethics.”

Comment: …and who, like the Republicans, work tirelessly to defeat its effectiveness.

“It is the Democrats who got the Ethics Committee – which didn’t function under Republicans – back to work.”

Comment: Back to work, but continuing not to function. For example, the Committee has known about Rangel’s most serious ethics violations, some of which are criminal in nature, for two years. There is very little to investigate, if the Committee wanted to “work” in the sense of “get its job done.” It is a measure of the Congressional Democrats’ cynical disregard for ethics that it would dare to trumpet the current Ethics Committee as an improvement over anything. Which is a better form of transportation, a car that doesn’t start, or a giant lump of Limburger cheese? One may smell better, but neither goes anywhere.

“When questions about ethics have been raised about any Member of Congress, Democrats have acted quickly to make sure it the question was addressed by the appropriate entity.”

Comment: Translation: “When a member of Congress is exposed and caught red-handed, we make sure that we plug the problem into the slowest process possible and ensure that the member is protected from public scrutiny for as long as possible.” Well, isn’t that special.

Here is what neither Republicans nor Democrats understand. Ethics is not about committees, regulations, or accusations. Ethics is about character and culture. The culture of Congress is corrupt and corrupting, so it is small wonder that both parties are as trustworthy as Bernie Madoff and as honest as John Edwards. But if a culture is going to change, those within the culture—the previously corrupt, the currently corrupt, and those who will become corrupted if change doesn’t occur—have to sound the ethics alarms, and it is to be expected that the loudest alarms will be sounded by those who are not currently in charge.

Yes, it’s hypocritical…if those pointing out the corruption now intend to continue it if and when they get control. But we only can be sure of that once they are actually in control. The Republicans may well be hypocrites in this way…history says they almost certainly are. We know with absolute certainty that the current Democratic leaders are hypocrites, however. They were swept into office by the same justifiable disgust that follows their performance now, on the promise that they would do better. The long, long, list of past and present GOP ethics violators in the latest release does not change the fact that they have not done better. The majority Democrats, like the Republican majority before them, neither understands nor respects nor embraces ethical government. Nancy Pelosi, in the same appearance in which she refused to ask Rangel to resign as Chairman of Ways and Means, still insisted that she was running “the most ethical Congress” in history. Yes, Nancy Pelosi is proud of the ethics of her Congress.

We should, therefore, accept the abysmal ethics of these elected leaders because that is the best we are going to get. That is the real message of the DCCC’s Hypocrisy Defense, and when a nation accepts such a proposition, it is doomed to increasing corruption. Ask anyone from Mexico, or Nigeria, or almost any African nation. That is because corrupt leaders must always know that the public will not accept corruption, and that representatives who show themselves to be unethical will lose at the polls, even if the alternative is hardly more promising…because unethical public service must have consequences. The alternative—accepting the argument that we must accept unethical leaders because those who will replace them are likely to be just as unworthy of our trust, guarantees that cultures of corruption thrive, darken, and become institutionalized.

Use of the Hypocrisy Defense reveals corrupt organizations and individuals who are not interested in reform, only in holding onto their power. Never admit accountability, just point out that others are just as bad or worse….even if what they are saying  is 100% true. The Hypocrisy Defense is itself unethical, and in the case of Congressional Democrats, is more damning in what it tells us about their values than any GOP attack.