Once President Bill Clinton became linked to Monica Lewinsky, the Republicans began to have the moral edge in the public’s eyes. Though his presidency brought more positive changes in this country (a surplus, high rates of college attendance, etc.), the moment when he lied and subsequently admitted to having an affair with a voluptuous intern erased all the good he had accomplished, in the eyes of many.

Despite George W. Bush’s controversial past (he was arrested for drunk driving and has a history of alcoholism) and opinions (that mentally retarded people should be given the death penalty), he won the 2000 election. Admittedly, it was a close race, decided by the Supreme Court. Yet the race would not have been so tight had his contender, Al Gore, had not the stain of formerly being Clinton‘s vice president. Repeatedly, political commentators in the media mentioned how Gore and Clinton were connected in the public psyche. Gore distanced himself from Clinton as a result, and this, ironically, repelled Clinton supporters who saw Gore as dwelling too much on the Lewinsky affair and not on the accomplishments of the eight years of the Clinton.

In 2000, Bush won the presidency based on the moral vote; he captured the swooning hearts of the Christian conservatives, who were angry at the salacious, scandalous, immoral behavior of a powerful politician, and saw him to be the moral alternative.

Fast-forward to today: after over half a decade of Republican domination of both houses of Congress (based on ‘moral’ voters who deemed Republicans to be the representatives of values and ethics), two concurrent ethical scandals have ensnared the Republicans. The first was the journalist Bob Woodward’s latest revelation in the newest installment of his Bush-at-war series, ‘State of Denial,’ that President Bush has been dishonest with the American people about the Iraq war.

Now, recall that the President was elected for a second term (despite already existing questioning of the war’s rationale, strategy, and treatment of our soldiers) because he capitalized on the fears of those who view gay marriage to be the ethical crisis of our times. The Iraq war was even then believed to not be objectively linked to the war against terror, yet Bush kept asserting that it was. Recently he’s made his rhetoric more realistic, but there still remained that feeling that he hasn’t been fully truthful. Bob Woodward was one of the Washington Post journalists that broke the Watergate story about the Nixon administration’s cover-up of the Watergate break-in back in the 1970s. He is viewed as a highly respected journalist.

While Bush’s Iraq cover-up is not as bad as Watergate, according to Woodward, it certainly is enough to make him concerned. President Clinton lied, if you may recall, about having ‘sexual relations with [a] woman,’ but that lie did not lead to, as Woodward calls the Iraq war, a war of choice. Both lies were wrong, but one was fatal. Bush’s lie hurt the country financially, as well as the loss of too many limbs and lives in Iraq, and countless separated and ruined military families.

Woodward’s ‘State of Denial‘ has been out only a week and it apparently has been affecting the Bush administration. Repeatedly, the press secretary for Bush, Tony Snow, has had to address this book’s implications to the media in press conferences. With all the attention the Bush administration gave to this book, they must have assumed it would be the only controversy they would have to deal with. How wrong they were. Within days of Woodward’s strong suggestion of Bush being a liar about the Iraq mess, news appeared all across the media. It explained that a Republican Congressman had an inappropriate run in with an underage Congressional page.

Representative Mark Foley of Florida, who was expected to help maintain the Republican dominance of Congress, resigned after reports that he sent sexual messages to a sixteen year old male. According to the Washington Post, Foley chaired the House Missing and Exploited Children Committee and was credited with writing the sexual-predator provisions of the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006. How ironic it was that he decided to write lewd messages to that underage boy. Beyond the obvious unethical action of preying on a minor via the Internet, Foley was also immoral in his desire to lie about the nature of his communications with the page. Republicans who aided him in his cover-up were almost as unethical as he was, since around the time suspicions were starting, he gave a generous amount of money to the Republican cause.

Now that the cookies have hit the fan, it seems that the Republican’s chances for keeping their dominance and beating the typical midterm election backlash against the President’s party are becoming crumbs.