Newt & Nooners Caught Huffing Whip-It

Media Matters takes us to Aisle 12--Dairy Products, Aerosolized:

On the January 4 edition of Fox News' Your World with Neil Cavuto, Fox News political contributor and former Speaker of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich (R-GA) asserted that the Democratic Party's constituency "is, frankly, much more tolerant of corruption." Gingrich argued that the current corruption scandal regarding former Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff is "much more dangerous for the Republican Party because we're the natural party of reform."

In her January 5 column on OpinionJournal.com, Wall Street Journal contributing editor Peggy Noonan, a presidential speechwriter during the Reagan and first Bush administrations, made a similar claim, contending that "the public expects the party that loves big government to be pretty good at finagling government, playing with it, using it for its own ends," as opposed to "the anti-big-government party" which "isn't supposed to be so good at it [finagling government]."

Uh, sure...(don't let them near any sharp objects, OK?)

Let's review (with a little help from Wikipedia):

Watergate Scandal
1972-1977
President Nixon (R)

On January 28, 1974, Nixon campaign aide Herbert Porter pleaded guilty to the charge of lying to the FBI during the early stages of the Watergate investigation. On February 25, Nixon's personal lawyer Herbert Kalmbach pleaded guilty to two charges of illegal election campaign activities. Other charges were dropped in return for Kalmbach's cooperation in the forthcoming Watergate trials.

On March 1, 1974, former aides of the president, known as the Watergate Seven — Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Mitchell, Colson, Gordon C. Strachan, Robert Mardian, and Kenneth Parkinson — were indicted for conspiring to hinder the Watergate investigation. The grand jury also secretly named Nixon as an unindicted co-conspirator. Dean, Magruder and other figures in the scandal had already pleaded guilty. Colson stated in his book Born Again that he was given a report by a White House aide that clearly implicated the CIA in the whole Watergate scandal and showed an attempt to implicate him as the one responsible.

On April 7, the Watergate grand jury indicted Ed Reinecke, Republican lieutenant governor of California, on three charges of perjury before the Senate committee. On April 5, former Nixon appointments secretary Dwight Chapin was convicted of lying to the grand jury.

And we'll throw in Spiro Agnew for extra credit.

Iran Contra Scandal
1980s
President Reagan (R)

On November 26 President Reagan, faced with mounting pressure from Congressional Democrats and the media, announced that as of December 1 former Senator John Tower, former Secretary of State Edmund Muskie, and former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft would serve as members of a Special Review Board looking into the matter; this Presidential Commission became known as the Tower Commission. At this point, President Reagan said he had not been informed of the operation. The Tower Commission implicated North, Poindexter, and Weinberger amongst others. It did not determine that the President had knowledge, although it argued that the President ought to have had better control of the National Security Council staff.

The U.S. Congress issued its final report on 18 November 1987, which stated that the President bore "ultimate responsibility" for wrongdoing by his aides and his administration exhibited "secrecy, deception and disdain for the law." Oliver North and John Poindexter were indicted on multiple charges on March 16, 1988. North, indicted on nine counts, was initially convicted of three minor counts, although the conviction was later vacated upon appeal on the grounds that North's Fifth Amendment rights may have been violated. The violation was said to be the indirect use of his testimony to Congress which had been given under a grant of immunity. Poindexter was convicted on several felony counts of lying to Congress, obstruction of justice, conspiracy, and altering and destroying documents pertinent to the investigation. His convictions were also overturned on appeal on similar grounds as North's. The Independent Counsel chose not to re-try North or Poindexter.

Faced with undeniable evidence of his involvement in the scandal, Reagan expressed regret regarding the situation on national television. In his speech, Reagan stated that he believed what he did was right, and understood how the American people might not think the same way. Nevertheless, Reagan survived the scandal, and would see his approval ratings return to previous levels.

[snip]

Sen. John Kerry's 1988 U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations report on Contra-drug links concluded that "senior U.S. policy makers were not immune to the idea that drug money was a perfect solution to the Contras' funding problems." [1] According to the National Security Archive, Oliver North had been in contact with Manuel Noriega, Panama's drug-baron, whom he personally met.

[snip]

These issues are of far-reaching importance in themselves, and also in light of the fact that several key people implicated in the Iran-Contra scandal reappeared again at high-level posts in later administrations, most notably in George W. Bush's administration.