Summary: We all know there’s a double standard where progressive politicians are held accountable for behavior that’s completely ignored when conservatives do it. This post explores the source of that double standard.

So the FBI is investigating allegations that Senator John Ensign tried to pressure a company that was lobbying him into hiring the husband of a woman the Nevada Republican had an affair with. His office dismissed the investigation haughtily. BarbinMD of Daily Kos dryly snarks Ensign’s skin off his back (emphasis mine.)

According to Ensign’s spokeswoman:

“Senator Ensign has consistently acted in an ethical manner to avoid even the appearance of impropriety.”

No word on whether Mrs. Ensign agrees.

She said it here.

Ouch!

Background: Nevada Sen. John Ensign got in a little hot water when he conducted an affair with a campaign employee. He then got in a little more hot water when the employee’s husband (also an Ensign staffer!) discovered the affair and threatened to take the story public. Then he got in a little more hot water by paying the husband quite a bit of hush money out of his parent’s bank account. He now seems to be in considerably more hot water with, for instance, the F.B.I., for possibly suggesting that if a company wanted favors from him they’d have to hire the husband as a consultant.

Actually, unless you follow seriously left/progressive/Democratic bloggers like Barb you may not have heard about any of that. That’s because only sex-and-coverup scandals that really seem to have legs are those of Democrats like John Edwards or Bill Clinton.

There are all manner of excuses bandied about for the seeming double standard. The right-wing noise machine being one, progressive’s peculiarly tone deafness to the importance of public relations being another. Sometimes it’s attributed to the press’s peculiar affection for Republican silverbacks like John McCain. And sometimes (perhaps least improbably) it’s that while the general population and even members of the news industry might be progressive, advertisers, especially major advertisers likely to buy time in major outlets, tend to be very conservative.

Personally I think that for all the narrative about liberals and progressives being the party of Godlessness, Gays, and “Sodom and Gomorrah,” the general public perhaps, well, perversely expects better of Democrats, which makes their misbehavior feel like news. Meanwhile, again for all their talk about sanctity, patriotism, and moral standing it’s… contrary to the lamenting IOKIFYAR acronym (“it’s ok if you’re a Republican”) the real problem is it’s just not news when yet another Republican Senator disgraces himself, when a “homophobic” California legislator turns out to be openly gay, when a “family values” televangelist turns out to be a drug addict or pedophile or to hire male or female prostitutes, or when an “upright” rising star in the Senate turns out to not just cheat on his wife, and not just cheat on his wife with prostitutes, but cheats on his wife with prostitutes who indulge his fetish for wearing diapers. It’s just not news.

Update Oh and this just in the (Republican, naturally) Majority Leader of the Utah House has just admitted that he took a nude hot tub with a 15-year-old. Which might not be an issue (who goes in a hot tub with clothes on) except he evidently took her somewhere to do it, they were alone, and most suspiciously, he paid her $150,000 of hush money. TPMMuckraker caps the post with the IJNNWARD news that “After the confession, lawmakers lined up to embrace Garn and his wife.” Sweet mother of pearl!

Update: Another example from current events. Republican Congressman David Dreier is apoplectic that Democrats are invoking the “deem and pass” procedure that Dreier himself routinely used when his party was in charge. The press and public never peeped when he did it. But look at the interesting outcome if you invoke IJNNWACDI instead of IOKIYAR: it wasn’t news when Dreier did it any more than it’s news when a derelict wino soils himself at a bus stop. But contrary to the backhanded permission-giving of IOKIYAR it’s not ok that they do it. See the difference? Same with the John Ensign vs. John Edwards scandals. It’s not ok that either of them did it… but nobody’s surprised that a conservative did, and therefore it’s just not news.

Incidentally IJNNWACDI also explains why it’s not even hypocritical for conservatives to be upset when progressives do it. Just like the derelict who routinely soils himself in public would be shocked if a doctor or school teacher did it, Dreier, like David Brooks or John Boehner, is shocked because Nancy Pelosi is doing it.