Frank was subsequently asked whether the same went for another promise-breaker, Frank's fellow Massachusetts Democrat Meehan. Frank didn't flinch. Meehan, he said, should quit. So far as I know, Frank is the only member of Congress's ruling party -- the Incumbents' Party -- to take such a stand. The others, including those Republicans who bray against Bill Clinton's lack of honor and truthfulness, have maintained a deafening silence. In fact, the Republican leadership, fearful of losing seats, reportedly urged Nethercutt and other self-limiters to stay.
"This ought to bother people," William J. Bennett, the Republican grandee and former Reagan and Bush Administration official, told me. "I campaigned for Nethercutt in '94, and I liked him, I liked his ideas. But he's now acting dishonorably. He's breaking his word, and he's doing it without any apparent remorse. He's making people more cynical about politics. Some promises should not be kept, because circumstances change. But about the only circumstance that has changed here that seems to me to be relevant is that he has gotten to like where he is, and I don't think that's enough."
There is, however, a political circumstance that might be relevant: This year, control of the House hangs in the balance. From Republicans' point of view, keeping a promise but sacrificing a seat might be the moral victory that loses the war. Principles, as Washington cynics say, aren't much good if the party loses come election time.
Actually, it is not clear that Nethercutt is more likely to hold the seat than some other Republican candidate would be; his broken promise has made him vulnerable and drawn a primary opponent, though he is still favored to win in his Republican-leaning district. Nor is it clear that his seat would tip the balance in Congress. But grant both assumptions. The idea that Republicans need to condone promise-breaking in order to save conservatism from the Democrats would be more persuasive if the Republicans were, at the moment, saving conservatism from the Republicans.
The House Republicans were conservative for a while (1995 and 1996), and they are still conservative on such symbolic issues as abortion. But that is about the extent of it. Stephen Moore and Stephen Slivinski of the Cato Institute note that most of the programs that the Republicans swore to eliminate in 1995 have actually grown, and that the current Republican Congress has just chalked up the highest increase (11 percent) in real nondefense spending since -- hold on -- the Democrats under President Carter. That is the greater conservative good that Nethercutt's re-election would serve.
Given the way the Republicans are actually behaving, a more plausible explanation for their complicity with Nethercutt is that they like power and want to keep it. Not exactly shocking. But at least clarifying. Nethercutt and his Republican colleagues in Congress have become the beast that they promised to slay.
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