Why Are We Beginning to Hate Congress?

By Victor Davis Hanson

Recent polls show that more than 70 percent of the public holds an unfavorable view of Congress. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) wins about a 10 percent approval rating; Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has similarly rock-bottom poll numbers.

Why this astounding -- and growing -- disdain for our lawmakers? After all, Congress has had plenty of scandals and corruption in the past, such as the House post office and check-kiting messes the Charles Keating payoffs, and the Abscam bribery.

But lately, Congress seems not merely corrupt, but -- far more worrisome -- without apparent concern that it has become so unethical.

A "culture of corruption" was the slogan of the Democratic Party to win back Congress in 2006. And indeed there was lots of sleaze then among incumbent Republicans.

Reps. Duke Cunningham (R-Calif.), Bob Ney (R-Ohio) and Tom DeLay (R-Texas) all left Congress under a cloud. Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.) and Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) saw their careers ruined over creepy sex allegations. Convicted felon Jack Abramoff ran a criminal lobbying syndicate by which big money earned special attention from Republican lawmakers.

But when reform-minded Democrats took over, the mess got no better, and possibly worse -- suggesting that the problem was not politics, but what Congress itself had become. Rep. William Jefferson (D-La.) was convicted on multiple counts, including bribery and racketeering. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.), who recently stepped down as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, for over a year has been under investigation for numerous transgressions -- from rent-control violations and tax avoidance to improper lobbying and omissions from financial disclosure forms. The late Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) had seemed destined for an investigation into quid-pro-quo relationships between the money he received from boosters and the earmarks he earned them. Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) managed to get a cut-rate home loan from a tottering bank -- and a great deal on a vacation home in Ireland from a seller with connections to someone for whom Dodd lobbied for a presidential pardon.(see the rest of this story at RealClearPolitics - Why Are We Beginning to Hate Congress?)