What Did the Democrats Know and When did they Know It?

[RJLipkin at aol.com]

Last night on Hardball one  Republican congressman argued that the only 
question in the congressional  page debacle is "What did the Democrats know and 
when did they know it?"  When asked if he knew any Democrats who knew about 
Foley's misconduct, he  replied: "Let's put it this way. I don't know that 
democrats did not know about  his conduct" (My question marks indicate close 
paraphrases. I couldn't find the  interviews online this morning, so I do not offer the 
"quotes" as a true  quotation.) 
 
        My question is what's wrong  with a political (and therefore 
constitutional system) that permits (provides an  incentive for) this kind of 
Orwellian response. (I do not mean anyone's Free  Speech should be curtailed; rather 
is it possible to create a  constitutional and political culture which would 
significantly  discourage these types of statements?) Perhaps such obfuscation 
cannot  be eliminated from even an ideal constitutional system. Perhaps the 
only  antidote is electoral defeat.  But surely there must be some informal  
element in republican democratic theory that would discourage these remarks.  Keep 
in mind this congressman is not making these remarks in personal  
self-defense, which at least provides (conceivably) a rationalization for saying  almost 
anything.  Is the answer that in any kind of democracy this type of  
deliberate distortion must remain a possibility, that is, it would be quixotic  to 
think constitutional culture could even informally discourage speech of  this sort?
 
        I suppose astonishment  derives from a frustration over the poverty 
of political discourse  generally--from both sides of the aisle--but can anyone 
regard the above remark  as anything but beyond the pale?
 
Bobby

Robert Justin Lipkin
Professor of Law
Widener  University School of Law
Delaware
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