ABSTRACT
Every family has the oddball aunt or the strange cousin whose behavior brings disrepute on the entire clan. While there is little evidence that Congress as a whole has a greater percentage of inappropriately behaving individuals, the transgressions of the few make news for a variety of reasons. In the fi rst place, members of Congress are public offi cials whose behavior is monitored and who are expected to behave in particularly virtuous ways in the eyes of their paymasters, the American public. Second, individuals in politics are expected to make pronouncements of grand principles about appropriate behavior in the ideal society, but whose own personal behavior often fails to stand up to those principles. Finally, rather than viewing inappropriate behavior by members of Congress as personal failures, there is a signifi cant temptation on the part of the media to generalize the entire institution, to tar and feather every member for the sins of a few.
