THE ROBERT W. WHITAKER ARCHIVE

Homosexual Congressman Studds of Massachusetts got reelected after seducing male interns. He survived the scandal, but conservative Representative Crane of Illinois, who seduced a female intern the same year, was defeated in the next election.

What a public servant gets away with depends entirely on his constituents.

The media hated those of us who were on the right.

If they got anything on us, they would not downplay it the way they did the Studds affair. We all know that if Teddy Kennedy had been a conservative, Chappaquidick would have destroyed him.

So the right had to follow the old rule, "Don't write down anything you are not willing to see on the front page of the Washington Post tomorrow." As a result, the press did a bang-up job of riding herd on us and exposing corruption on our side.

That, after all, is the function a free press is supposed to serve: keeping public servants honest.

By the same token, this also means that the media does not do its job when it comes to the left.

So one of the things Congressman Condit says is true. He is indeed getting meaner treatment from the media than Clinton did.

This is because Clinton was needed by the political left, so he got full backing from the press for anything he did, no matter how sleazy.

Condit is not leftist enough or important enough to earn the same free pass Clinton had.

If Condit finds this surprising, he must have been living under a rock.

A totally corrupt person can survive in politics if the press and his constituents give him a free pass. We all know that the left, constituents and media, will quite literally let their servants get away with murder.

So when we hear big-time paid commentators tell us that everybody they know about in politics is immoral and corrupt, they are telling you all about themselves.