ABSTRACT
In 1991, Suzanne Garment lamented that scandal had become an overwhelming force in US politics, effectively pushing aside considerations of competence, efficiency, wisdom and rationality (Garment, 1991). In recoil from the horrors of Watergate, law-makers, the public and the media had whipped each other up into a permanent frenzy over issues of character, integrity and sometimes quite trivial lapses in judgment. House Speaker Newt Gingrich began his rise to prominence by commandeering ethical issues into service in partisan warfare and made his breakthrough by managing to redefine the 1994 congressional elections as a referendum on the characters of President Bill Clinton, House of Representatives ‘Boss’ and longtime Chairman of House Ways and Means Committee Dan Rostenkowski and the entrenched Democratic leadership. 1
