GOP: The Party of Morality?

Another Republican has resigned, this time over a scandal involving inappropriate sexually explicit messages being sent to underage congressional pages. Of course this is unacceptable and likely criminal behavior and should be prosecuted as such. Making this doubly outrageous is the fact that the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives was briefed on the matter, perhaps years ago. The aspects of this particular scandal are being well covered in the media.
However, this is yet another example of the Republicans'’ culture of secrecy and abuse of power. Not only were the personal actions of Mark Foley, the Congressman who recently resigned, inappropriate, but also involved an element of abuse of power and authority. A congressman must be very intimating to a teenage page. It seems that the congressman abused his authority and pressured the pages into illegal actions.
But this abuse of power, and impulse to cover-up if not outright lie seem to be standard operating procedure for the Republican party. It is obvious now that we did not go to war in Iraq over WMD, not simply for the benefit of the Iraqi people, nor to defend ourselves from a clear and present threat to our security. There were no links between Al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, despite what Vice President Dick Cheney says. We are told that the preemptive war in Iraq is going well. There are billion of dollars that have disappeared in Iraq - funds that were supposed to be rebuilding the country after we invaded it. The government is bent on wiretapping American citizens without warrants, and bypassing a court set up for that purpose. Republicans (and yes, a few Democrats too) have been implicated in charges of illegal and legal bribery - voting for policies based upon unethical campaign contributions. The economy currently is doing well -– with the rich benefiting from government policies that are killing the poor and middle class. Plus, we still don't know what the Vice President and oil executives decided behind closed doors. But we do know that until recently gas was over $3.00 a gallon in most parts of the U.S. The worst hypocrisy is that the Republicans in their self-righteousness have branded themselves the party of "personal responsibility" and morality. Perhaps people are beginning to see the current Republican party and for what it truly stands: Freedom (for the rich from taxes), Liberty (for congressmen to abuse their staff), Justice (for those that can bribe elected officals), and Democracy (One person, one vote - of course it will be counted on a Republican-funding Diebold company voting machine,) and Personal Responsibility (for self-professed Christians until they are caught taking bribes, or abusing minors. The GOP has strayed far from being the party of Lincoln.