Sorry Mitt, But Cheating on Your Wife With a Consenting Adult Doesn't Put You in the Same Circle of Hell as Soliciting Sex With Children or Going Easy on Mine Safety While Miners Die

Okay, two blogs on HuffPo in one day is some kind of record for me since once every week or two is more normal, given my busy day job.

But I just couldn't resist taking a well-deserved shot at moral hypocrite Mitt Romney, the formerly "moderate" Republican governor of Taxachusettes who's now running hard for Moral Majority vote and hasn't met a flip which he couldn't flop.

After the press reported Monday that conservative Republican Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho, Senate Co-Chair and Idaho Co-Chair of Romney's presidential campaign, had pleaded guilty to soliciting sex from an undercover cop in the Minneapolis airport men's room, Mitt couldn't run fast enough to put distance between himself and Sen. Craig.

Mitt, Mitt, whatever happened to Christian charity and forgiveness? And what is it about Mitt that attracts the support of politicians who campaign to make gay marriage and even civil unions unconstitutional while cruising public restrooms for anonymous sex?

Of course Mitt isn't that much worse off than Rudy Giuliani, who had to distance himself from his South Carolina State Chairman who was indicted on federal cocaine charges, or John McCain, whose campaign jettisoned Florida State Rep. Bob Allen after he was also arrested for soliciting sex in a public restroom.

What is it with these Republicans? They run for office by casting the first stone at "sinners" like gay people. But these politicians who cast the first stone in the name of Christianity are hardly without "sin" under their own warped definitions. They keeping get caught with their hands in someone's crotch, often someone of the same gender, and all too often with children. Rep. Mark Foley quit the House after exchanging sexually explicit e-mails with underage male pages. Bush/Cheney campaigner Rev. Ted Haggard, a leader of the National Association of Evangelicals was forced out as pastor of the New Life Church after having sex and drugs with a gay prostitute. Louisiana Republican Sen. David Vitter's phone number turned up on the list of the so-called D.C. Madam. According to the Idaho Statesman newspaper, Sen. Craig had also been linked to a previous Congressional scandal in 1982 involving soliciting underage pages, but the timing of his denial fueled rumors of his homosexuality that lasted decades. According to The Statesman, Craig denied these rumors in a May, 2007 interview, including a report by a 40-year-old male professional with close ties to Republican officials that he had oral sex with Craig in Washington's Union Station. In the face of such reports of his homosexuality, last fall Craig issued a statement that he would vote for an amendment to the Idaho Constitution that bans both gay marriage and civil union.

Which bring us to the crux of the issue. Middle-aged men who solicit sex with children give me the creeps and are committing a crime. But what gives me the even bigger creeps are right-wing politicians who run for office by promoting hate and bigotry, even as they engage in the practices they condemn.

Worse still, Republicans have built a culture of corruption in Washington, selling the government to the highest bidder. Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff went to jail for bilking Indian tribes of hundreds of thousands of dollars to supposedly lobbying the Bush White House for their gambling interests, even as he conspired with former Christian Coalition leader Ralph Reed to deny them casino licenses. Dick Cheney had the oil and gas lobby secretly write the administration's energy policy. Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and "drown the government in a bathtub" Republican strategist Grover Norquist used the K Street Project to shake down lobbyists for contribution to the Republican Party in exchange for letting them write legislation regulating their own industries. Pres. Bush appointed a coal executive to run the Mine Safety.and Health Administration. Now Republican Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska and Rep. Rick Renzi of Arizona are both the subject of FBI corruption investigations.

Admitedly, Democrats are not without sin when it comes to taking lobbyist's money. (Hillary Clinton's defense of taking lobbyist money is one of the many things that makes me less than enthusiastic about her winning the Democratic Presidential nomination, although she's still preferable to any of the Republican contenders. It also makes it harder for Hillary to campaign against the Republican culture of corruption than John Edwards or Barack Obama who refuse lobbyist contributions) And Democratic Rep. William Jefferson was caught with $100,000 stashed in his freezer. But when it comes to out and out corruption, Republicans outnumber Democrats by about 20-1.

And more importantly, Democrats don't generally earn their living by flaunting their so-called morality while running on hate and bigotry.

So back to Mitt Romney, who's running hard for the vote of the gay bashers. He couldn't wait to throw Sen. Craig overboard, telling CNBC "He's no longer associated with my campaign, as you can imagine." Of course what does that say about Gov. Romney as a judge of character? Then he went on to try to tie the Craig scandal to the Clintons stating "I think it reminds us of Mark Foley and Bill Clinton."

I'm sorry Mitt. I'm not saying that cheating on your wife with a consenting adult is right. But it just doesn't put you in the same circle of hell as middle-aged men soliciting sex with minors. Nor does it put you in the same circle of hell as denying the rights of gay people, even as you solicit an undercover cop in a men's room. Nor does it put you in the same circle of hell as bilking the taxpayers out of billions of dollars to help corporate contributors, nor putting the interests of coal companies over the lives and safety of miners.

And the majority of the public doesn't think so either. When Bill Clinton left office, his poll numbers for personal morality were low. But his ratings as a president were in the mid-sixties, more than double those of George Bush. It's time that Republican candidates stop casting the first stone at so-called "sinners" and start promoting a little bit of tolerance and compassion. Of course if they stopped their moral pandering, where would that leave them with the evangelical Republican base so carefully put together by agnostic Karl Rove?