Column: The L.A. City Council mess shows how Democrats and Republicans react differently to scandal

Nury Martinez stepped down from the Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday in the aftermath of a leaked recording on which she was heard making racist and bigoted remarks. “An event that everyone at the time saw as manifestly disqualifying got repackaged as no big deal, and also somehow ‘fake news.’” Republicans haven’t always turned a blind eye to scandal in their midst. In the view of former Nixon speechwriter Lee Huebner, the speech presaged the Republican and conservative practice of “emphasizing appeals to social and cultural ‘identity’ rather than economic interests” to appeal to voters. We’re not only talking about Fox News, but the mainstream press that feels the urge to find “balance” in every report of wrongdoing, a discreditable practice known as “bothsidesism.” This week, for instance, NBC News paired the Herschel Walker revelations with a report that John Fetterman, the Democratic candidate for U.S. senator from Pennsylvania, required a transcription monitor during a news interview because of the residual effects of a recent stroke. “Fetterman, Walker face political challenges outside of the overall environment,” NBC headlined an online report, as though an antiabortion candidate’s financing of an abortion was somehow equivalent to the challenge of recovering from a stroke.