CT Blue

Ever since I started blogging, which was many moons ago, bloggers on our side of the fence have used the acronym IOKYAR to refer to what has become almost a legal rule in this country. It’s simply okay to transgress moral or legal norms if you’re a Republican. It is particularly okay so far as Republicans themselves are concerned.

That’s why I beg to differ with the folks over at the Palmer Report who seem to think there will be some sort of fallout, possibly even a resignation, after the revelations that Congressperson-elect George Santos (R-Naturally) has lied about everything in his past except possibly his name.

This merely makes him a potential star among Republicans, all of whom routinely lie. (Okay, maybe there’s an exception, but give me an example, please.) His Republican colleagues will simply look the other way for so long as it takes the media to lose interest, and the newly empaneled House Ethics Committee will implicitly rule, if it is even asked, that Ethics rules do not apply to Republicans. The media will certainly play along, as it has long since learned that different rules apply for Republicans, so whereas they would never forget this sort of thing were a Democrat involved, they’ll simply write this off as yet another Republican being a Republican. Stop and think of the tremendous number of long forgotten scandals in which Trump, his family, and his hanger-ons were involved, not to mention stuff like Gym Jordan protecting a sexual assailant.

What’s particularly galling about this is that not only do the same rules not apply to Democrats, Democrats don’t even get to be treated in what would be considered an equitable manner in other circumstances. I still seethe when I think about the fact that Al Franken had to resign due to a cooked up “scandal” in which he was presumed guilty with no chance to prove his innocence. even more galling was the fact that a number of Democrats seized the opportunity to apply the “Democrats are presumed guilty and must suffer consequences” rules in order to further their own careers. (Looking at you, Kristin Gillibrand, who, at least, found that you don’t become president by destroying the career of a popular possible opponent.)

In the case of Santos the only question is how long it will take for his fraud to be forgotten. I’d say a couple of weeks. It may hamper his re-election bid, but it will not affect his treatment by other Republicans. Democrats, being Democrats, will soon stop talking about it instead of harping on it as would Republicans were there a Democratic fraud of that sort. Meanwhile, we must ask, how could the Democratic candidate who lost to this guy in a Dem leaning district have failed to do some fairly basic opposition research that would have uncovered his lies when it would have done some good.

Afterword: I understand from a reliable source that the Democrats were aware that this guy was a serial liar, but apparently failed to act on their knowledge. It almost seems, sometimes, that the Democrats themselves have decided that IOKYAR.

Second Afterword: I know that the Palmer Report is in many respects simply a guilty pleasure. However, I’ll say once again that while I don’t buy into their analyses, the facts they report are accurate.