What a week for Newt Gingrich, eh?

To me, his re-election as Speaker of the House of Representatives is symptomatic of the moral decay in our society.

We've all heard of situational ethics. That tells us there really are no absolutes. That in any given situation, what's right for you may be wrong for me. Or what's right in one situation may be wrong in another. I think that is mostly nonsense, of course. There are absolutes. There are rights and wrongs, believe it or not.

But this Gingrich thing goes beyond situational ethics, as politics often does. Now we have a sliding scale of situational ethics.

The House of Representatives basically told us Tuesday that even though Gingrich has some ethical problems he can still ascend to one of the most important leadership positions in our government. His breach of ethics wasn't quite bad enough for him to step aside.

If that's true, it begs the question, What breach of ethics is bad enough to keep someone out of that position?

And further, who decides what a bad breach of ethics is? A sliding scale of situational ethics. Even if the situation shows an ethical breach, well, it wasn't that bad of an ethical breach. What nonsense.

Gingrich, a Republican from Georgia, admitted that he "brought discredit upon the House." He used tax-exempt organizations for partisan purposes. He also submitted "in my name and over my signature," inaccurate statements to the ethics committee. Those statements essentially denied the role of his political organization in tax-exempt projects.

Now I will admit Gingrich wasn't stomping puppies to death or drowning his girlfriend in a car after a hard night of drinking. But aren't our elected leaders supposed to be above reproach?

There are those who say the laws governing tax-exempt organizations are so complex it is extremely difficult to comply. And there are those who say that it really wasn't Gingrich's fault, it was some attorney's fault. Hmm, I wonder if those excuses would work for you and me if the IRS came knocking.

Don't misunderstand. I like the message Gingrich carries. Smaller government. Balanced budget. Lower taxes. I generally agree with the conservative ideology.

But I think Gingrich is a bit arrogant. I think he knew all along that his partisan college course and his book deals and his GOPAC funds were ethically challenged.

My guess is he thought he could stonewall and apologize and still get re-elected and remain Speaker of the House. And guess what? He was right.

But why wouldn't he think that? I mean, look at the stuff that goes on in Washington. Watergate. Iran-Contra. Travelgate. Filegate. Demo-contributions-from-shady-charactersgate. Thugs-hanging-out-at-the-White-Housegate. It makes what Gingrich did look tame.

And that's the problem.

We've developed a sliding scale for ethics. "Well, what he did wasn't really all that bad." And we all buy into it.

And on the other side of the coin, how about the ethics of those people in Florida who illegally taped Gingrich's phone call? And the ethics of the New York Times editors who rushed to print the story?

Does anybody really believe that the people in Florida just happened to stumble onto those conversations and just happened to know who was talking and just happened to have a tape recorder handy that they could hook up to their illegal scanner? And then they just happened to know some well-connected Democrats who just happened to decide maybe the New York Times would just happen to be interested in the tapes, right?

Please.

My guess is those people were following Gingrich around, just listening and waiting for him to screw up.

And he did.

It's time to get away from the "end justifies the means" mentality. There should be absolutes. There should be standards. Like, if you do something illegal or unethical you should step aside and allow someone else to take the lead.

But then again, I suppose after everybody stepped aside, there might not be anybody left. [[In-content Ad]]