The unethical conduct adopted by politicians trying to regain power can be very different from the unethical conduct favored by those who have power. Seduced by the corrosive "ends justify the means" culture entrenched during the disastrous tenure of former House Majority Leader Tom Delay, many Republicans indulged in influence peddling and personal enrichment, both far easier to accomplish when you actually have influence to pedal. While some Democrats also managed to line their pockets or those of their family members with ethically dubious transactions, that party's modus operandi for the entire duration of the Bush administration has been to intentionally undermine the public's faith in America's democratic institutions and the good intentions of those who commit themselves to public service. This reckless and irresponsible conduct may ultimately cause far more damage to the nation than all the Republican scandals combined.

Key members of the Democratic Party have purposefully fueled multiple conspiracy theories and worked hard to create the widespread belief that the leaders of one of the two major parties in America are hell-bent on taking away basic American freedoms. And that's not all. The current administration, they insist, also "lied" the nation into a foreign war; "stole" both of the last two presidential elections; intentionally failed to respond adequately to Hurricane Katrina because most of the victims were black; and somehow engineered the attack on the World Trade Center in order to launch a "perpetual war" right out George Orwell's "1984."

There are many Americans who now believe all of these things, and many more who believe at least one of them. The fact that there is little or no objective evidence supporting any of these contentions has not significantly undermined the Democratic Party's objective in tacitly or directly encouraging them. Fanned by intemperate bloggers, abetted by an irresponsible and slovenly news media and given what passes for credibility in our celebrity-worshipping culture by celebrity loud-mouths ("I hate the President!" screams Rosanne Barr to a cheering crowd on her current HBO special), the tenor of public opposition to the Bush Administration is hateful rather than critical. There is less trust in the national government than at any time since Watergate.

The Democrats began this drumbeat before George Bush was even sworn in, shamefully claiming that a dark partisan conspiracy by the Supreme Court had "selected" the president, and that he was not a legitimate Chief Executive. Admittedly, treating the winner as illegitimate is a tactic adopted by every party that has lost the presidency in the Electoral College while winning the popular vote. It had always succeeded before by handicapping the new administration and limiting it to one unhappy term. That the strategy is historically successful, however, doesn't make it any less corrosive to our democracy or any less wrong.

This strategy worked as it always has, casting a shadow over the entire first term of the Bush presidency and creating a permanent vocal constituency of partisans who regarded every action by the administration as an affront to democracy. But there was no internet in 1888, the last time a president (Benjamin Harrison) reached the White House without getting more votes than his opposition. The emerging network of vehement blogs since 2000 allowed the Democrats to continue and expand their course of creating disillusionment and distrust far beyond its previous natural limits. Thus party operatives continued to claim that Bush's second election, despite a substantial majority of the popular vote, had also been "stolen" through a nefarious conspiracy in Ohio. And a lot of Americans listened and believed, just as many (a jaw-dropping 36%) have believed the whispers that the U.S. Government was complicit in the attacks of 9/11, and just as a majority of blacks believe that the federal government's slow response to Katrina was caused by administration animosity toward black Americans. (Meanwhile, the black mayor of New Orleans, whose lack of preparedness and bad judgement helped put New Orleans' black residents in peril in the first place, was handily re-elected.)

The Democrats, led by Howard Dean and employing the support of such habitual truth-twisters as Michael Moore and Move-On.Org, have now spent six years chipping away at the public's respect and trust of their elected government and its institutions. It has done this not simply by challenging the policies, performance and governing philosophy of the party in power, as a responsible opposing party should and must do, but by exploiting rumor, innuendo, class and race divisions and ignorance to plant doubts about the Bush administration's motives, dedication to the public welfare and commitment to democracy.

This unconscionable picking at the fabric of the public's faith in our system of government was successful at eroding support for the Bush Administration and Republican Party, but with disastrous consequences. For example, the recent Pew Research Center report found that blacks are twice as likely now compared to 2004 to say they had little or no confidence in the voting system, an increase to 29 percent from 15 percent. Some Democrats feared that this might suppress black participation in the mid-term elections, meaning that the cynicism they worked so hard to create would have backfired.

Playing with fire will have that effect sometimes, though this particular scenario did not come to pass. The combination of their own incompetence, venality and corruption was sufficient to sink the Republicans, and a fortunate bi-product of their well-earned defeat was to stop, at least for the moment, Democratic assaults on public faith in our system of government. Well before the votes were cast in 2006, members of the Angry Left who could not comprehend how a party they believe is evil incarnate could possibly win a fair election were posting on blogs that they should "take to the streets" if the Democrats did not take back control of both Houses of Congress. It would be proof positive, they were certain, that an election had been stolen yet "again." The web was teeming with claims that the fix was in, with the Diebold Corporation, the manufacturer of many of the new electronic voting machines being used in this election, being accused of secretly conspiring with Republicans.

Well, the Democrats won, so everything must be working right in America. But their very dangerous conduct over the past six years to systematically destroy the public's trust in its government has left wound that will not heal over-night. The irony is that these efforts were so unnecessary. The Republican leadership showed itself to be so corrupted by its pursuit of power and so inept at the task of governing that it made rejection at the polls all but mandatory. But the Scoreboard believes that the harm done by the Democratic party's conspiracy-mongering will far exceed the consequences of Tom Delay's machinations, Randy Cunningham's greed, Ralph Reed's perfidy, Bill Frist's hypocrisy, Dennis Hastert's irresponsibility, or the other disreputable actions by the sordid assortment of influence-peddling, mistress-strangling, public-deceiving officials who call themselves Republicans. They represent, after all, just a bumper crop of what democracies have always had to endure and always will: individuals who prove themselves unworthy of elected office. Dealing with them is simple: you throw them out of office or into jail. But the public's trust, once lost, is difficult to regain. Thanks to the Democrats, public distrust is not confined to one party, but now encompasses the entire structure that Jefferson and Adams and Madison so carefully crafted.

Many Democrats have pointedly used the old ironic description of the U.S. policy in Viet Nam to describe the war in Iraq: "Destroy the country in order to save it." If the nation the Republicans are willing to "destroy in order to save" is Iraq, the country the Democrats have risked destroying by planting and cultivating the contagions of suspicion and cynicism is the United States of America. One certain benefit of the Democrats gaining power will be that the party will have to begin building faith in our system of government rather than tearing it down.