How about these righteous Republicans?
In 1982 fellow Illinois Republican Rep. Dan Crane was accused of having an affair with his 17 year old page. Crane confessed
and it seemed he was going to be kicked out of the House until Hyde came to his rescue:
We sit here not to characterize the crime, the breach, the transgression, because we all know that the
transgression…is stipulated as reprehensible…He is embarrassed, he is humiliated, he is displaced…It will be with
him, and it will be with his family as long as they live…Mr. Speaker, I suggest to the members that compassion
and justice are not antithetical; they are complimentary. The Judeo-Christian tradition says, ‘Hate the sin and love
the sinner.’ We are on record as hating the sin…I think it is time to love the sinner. (Bernstein, 69).
First of all, Hyde obviously felt that Crane too was still capable of serving in office, despite that what he did was 2-5 hard time
for statutory rape in some states. Hyde, Clinton, and Crane had all committed adultery, and yet according to Hyde’s scale,
Clintons crime weighed heavier for some reason (though it would seem that Clintons was actually the most harmless offense,
because Hyde had a public affair with a married woman for eight years resulting in the break up of her family, and Crane had
had sex with a minor, as compared to Clintons ‘covert’ affairs). And once again Hyde used the argument that the effects of
exposure were punishment enough for "him [Crane], and it will be with his family as long as they live" and that warranted
"compassion and justice," which required bending Hyde’s precious rule of law to protect a fellow Republican. Whatever, right?
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