The refrain being taken up by beleaguered Republicans and conservatives goes like this:

"We are witnessing a sea change in American politics: the criminalization of ideology. Unable to defeat its adversaries in policy debate or at the ballot box, Democrats, aided by a partisan press and politically motivated prosecutors, are increasingly using the criminal process to undermine and remove key Republican leaders." 

The idea was given quick circulation by Rush Limbaugh, and then picked up by various conservative columnists; no doubt we will start hearing it from conservative politicians very soon. There's really only one problem with the theory: it doesn't fit the facts.

The investigations, prosecutions and legal threats being faced today by Tom DeLay, Bill Frist, "Scooter" Libby and Karl Rove stem from real and serious misconduct, not trumped up political crimes. More than that, they all have arisen from unchecked unethical behavior that finally reached a point where the law had to step in. It is a process that has been repeated throughout human history: when common sense, ethics and decency fail, when they are ignored or not accorded proper respect too often by too many, law takes over. This is why the mantra so frequently uttered in Washington, "I did nothing wrong. No laws were broken!" is in fact usually a warning of changes to come. When people keep doing bad things without breaking laws, eventually the public will demand a law that stops them.

Sexual harassment laws are classic examples. Manners, common sense and general ethical principles should have been enough to teach men that workplace harassment was wrong, and for most men, they were. But too many high profile Bob Packwoods felt that they could use the workplace as their own personal singles bar without "doing anything wrong," since no relevant laws were on the books to break. Now, thanks to them, there are such laws. They are for the most part lousy, vague, overly broad and confusing laws, because personal human relations is one of the areas in which ethics, not laws, should govern conduct. Still, they were necessary, because there were too many people who couldn't or wouldn't be ethical.

Another example is the controversial McCain-Feingold campaign finance law. It, like the sexual harassment laws, doesn't work very well, and if politicians could have restrained their greed, maintained their integrity and independence while special interests worked at changing minds with arguments rather than with checks, we would have been better off depending on ethics rather than a statute to avoid corruption. But politicians and special interests couldn't (and still can't), so the law stepped in where conscience was ineffective.

In Frist's case, there is a genuine whiff of insider trading on a grand scale, and when the alleged trader is the Majority Leader of the U.S. Senate, there just has to be an investigation with the real threat of legal action. It is absurd to suggest otherwise. Recent reports indicate that Frist's stock holdings, which he had always maintained were in a "totally blind" trust, in fact were not. For the leader of the Senate to be involved in creating health care laws while owning millions of dollars worth of stock in a health care corporation is an obvious conflict of interest, and Frist should have eliminated the conflict years ago. That he suddenly decided to do so recently by selling just before the value of his stock dropped illustrates why. The country has long depended on ethical instincts, rather than laws, to ensure that lawmakers didn't parlay their legislative activities into stock market profits, and it clearly hasn't been working: data shows that the senators who choose to play the market do remarkably well…better than most money managers, in fact. Ethics alone isn't working well enough. Frist may have been the example that sounded the alarm, and here comes the law, right on schedule.

Tom DeLay is classic case, a species of public official that has always inhabited North America but never, fortunately, in great numbers. His is the breed that rides to power by unapologetically breaking customs, avoiding restraint, ignoring comity, parsing regulations and warping rules. If a nuance in a law is not enforced, he will break it more frequently and egregiously than anyone else dared to, and then argue, as he is now, that he has been singled out for doing what others have done with impunity. "Everybody does it" is a threadbare argument against accusations of ethical misconduct and illegal conduct alike, but it is an especially cynical excuse when one is doing what "everybody" does more frequently and aggressively than anyone else ever dared. Those who use what the Scoreboard dubbed "The Golden Rationalization" with such reckless abandon usually provoke a legal crackdown that says, in effect, if everyone is doing this, it's time to stop. This response isn't political; it is cultural. In such cases, a nation must choose: does it want more Tom DeLays, or fewer?

Now there is a question with an obvious answer.

Rove and Libby similarly have the "everybody does it" complaint, but in their cases it is a matter of crossing an invisible line. All leaks are unethical, but leaks that compromise national security and the identity of undercover agents are worse. That Rove and Libby may not have intended to do this, or that they may end up being indicted for lying about it rather than for the offense itself doesn't change the fact that their dilemmas are the direct result of their own misconduct. If the final result of special prosecutor Fitzgerald indicting Libby, Rove or both is to make other gabby Washington officials, staffers and lawyers think twice about speaking to the press about matters that they are bound by duty, regulations or laws not to disclose, that is unequivocally a good development. Having neglected and ignored the ethics of leaking too often and for too long, they will have to consider possibility of punishment.

It does not reduce the legitimacy of the legal problems of Frist, DeLay, Rove and Libby that Democrats, administration critics, and warriors of the angry Left take glee in them, and Republican should not make the mistake of attempting to minimize or rationalize the offenses because they give comfort to their political adversaries. It would be far better for their party and the nation if they simply resolved to require their leaders to be more ethical in the future.