At least he's our SOB

Barbara left a comment in reply to Random Acts of Patriotism's remembrance of Ted Kennedy at Chappaquiddick. Now I don't want to get into the whole driving-while-submerged thing, so please just don't start. This is New England, and this has been thrashed to death for decades (and will continue to be, for more decades). That's not my point.

What was interesting was Barbara's comment:

As a man, he may not be the best, but as a senator, he's helped more people than anyone could imagine.

And while I disagree with much of Senator K's politics, I have to agree with Barbara here.

BUT. And here's where it get interesting to me (as a registered Independent) - it looks like this is pretty much standard defense for a bunch of the Democrats, from Democrats. Consider:

• Bill Clinton, serial sexual abuse of women who worked for him.
• Robert Bird, KKK grand poobah.
• Sandy Berger, stole documents from National Archives.
• Gerry Studds, who had sex with an intern.
  

No real consequences to any of these guys. So how come?

Back to Barbra's comment. They want to help people, so we'll forgive and forget. The press, as a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Democratic party, is a, shall we say, unindicted co-conspirator here. The message is that motives are more important than actions, or (in translation) "He may be an SOB, but he's our SOB."

This is actually OK as far as it goes. Politics is a rough sport, so I'm perhaps a little more forgiving here than RAOP might be.

BUT. Again, we come to the "but", and since there's even money that one of my three readers is a Democrat, I'd like to ask two questions:

1. Is there a GOP equivalent of the Democratic pols listed here? Note that I'm not asking about GOP pols caught in a scandal - those are legion. I'm looking for ones caught who remain in leadership positions in the party.
2. If Democrats self-identify as the party of "nice", then doesn't this sacrifice the moral high ground? Surely there are many, many other equally nice-motivated Democrat pols in Massachusetts who could take Sen Kennedy's seat. Wouldn't the Democratic agenda be advanced by throwing him (and Clinton, and Byrd, etc) under the bus?
   

It seems like this hurts the team. It is certainly a big reason that there's no longer a "D" after my name on the voter registration list. The must read on this topic is Ron Rosenbaum's "Goodbye all that: How the left's idiocies drove me to flee." Or Norm Geras. Or Neo-Neocon. Or Lissa.

So I guess a better question would be: is it worth circling the wagons around your SOBs, at the cost of increasing irrelevance? Does it make it harder to implement the agenda by covering for the Old Guard?