Duke took only half a step

By: JOHN VAN DOORN - Staff Writer | Saturday, July 16, 2005 10:32 PM PDT ∞

Well, it's a start.

Duke Cunningham says he won't run for Congress anymore; in next year's election the candidate will not be he.

His announcement was not exactly a stunner: Mr. Cunningham weaves a tangled web. He is being investigated ---- after a raid on his lavish Rancho Santa Fe digs ---- by assorted federal agencies that clearly are not kidding around.

He got himself raided because of questions concerning real-estate deals and the people he dealt with, one a felon, the other a defense contractor whose company received millions in government business over which the Congressman had considerable influence.

On the evidence to date, Cunningham appears to have done pretty well himself.

If there was any surprise at all in the congressman's announcement, it was that in the face of a month of hard questions about his dealings and his pals he took only a half-measure.

Deciding not to run again is a half-measure, a baby-step, from a man who ought to take a full one and resign this very minute, taking his "For Sale" sign with him. He should get out.

Such an act would be a sort of cleansing ritual for his government, his constituents, the air and his soul. Maybe his soul.

Half-measures are of course the stuff of American politics. They are routinely recommended by "consultants" and public-relations scammers the thrust of whose advice has nothing to do with truth or candor. It's to make things look good. (Viewed from another perspective, this particular half-measure might be a tacit admission of half-guilt.)

In his somber announcement before television cameras up at the Cal State campus in San Marcos on Thursday, Cunningham was at some pains to assure friends and supporters that he had always acted honorably and had never regarded profit-taking as a perk of office.

But he's said that before ---- that's about all he's said. From the start he has kept the details, where the devil resides, to himself. He employed one of the more grotesque phrases of our time ---- "ongoing investigation" ---- as his excuse not to explain himself or to answer the staccato list of questions about his backstairs behavior.

It was lame. "Ongoing investigation" is sophistry and nothing more. (The president's flack, Scott McClellan, uses the phrase every few seconds to explain why he won't explain what the president thinks of the Karl Rove debacle.)

From the onset of this scandalous narrative, it has been ---- or should have been ---- Cunningham's absolute duty to talk to his constituents, to tell them what he's been up to, in detail. He didn't mind talking endlessly about every aspect of his life when he was seeking their votes. Now, when it appears ---- just appears ---- that he has acted badly as the representative of the people of the 50th Congressional District, mum's the word.

Generosity is a virtue, no question, and under different circumstances the generous thing would be to give Cunningham the benefit of the doubt. But that's not how it works with members of Congress. They are to be held to a higher standard because they speak for all, they represent all, and they must act and speak from the high ground. The rest of us can work the valleys.

They go to Congress as the best among us, in many respects, and we have the right to expect that they'll behave well and serve us honorably, and not do or get involved in anything we couldn't tell our kids about with pride.

Cunningham's I-will-not-run-again speech was not good enough. He serves nobody except himself with this decision. If he wants to save face, which is essentially what the half-measure was designed for, let him do it on his own time ---- as a private citizen.

The fact is, it's not his seat at all. It's our seat. We lent it to him. We have the right to say, "Get out of that chair, Mr. Cunningham, and go home right now. We've got other folks in mind."

What's more, nobody wants a congressman lurking in the halls who's going to spend his 16 remaining months in office searching for a dollop of redemption and a way to stay out of jail.

Contact staff writer John Van Doorn at (760) 739-6647 or jvandoorn@nctimes.com.