Opinions in the media.

Why is it that
- Bill Frist is being investigated for insider trading,
- Tom DeLay for money laundering,
- the White House for outing CIA employee Valerie Plame,
- Jack Abramoff and Republican Congressman Bob Ney for fraud?

Conservatives William Kristol* and Jeffrey Bell have an answer:

Writing in the Weekly Standard, William Kristol and Jeffrey Bell sound out the newest meme… “the fall of 2005 will be remembered as a time when it became clear that a comprehensive strategy of criminalization had been implemented to inflict defeat on conservatives who seek to govern as conservatives.” The short form of this meme was tried out on the Sunday talk shows: We are witnessing the “criminalization of politics.”

The above is from an editorial in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, which concludes:

No one also should be judged guilty before the legal process runs its course. But surveying the passel of legal troubles that now afflict those in power in Washington, it’s not the criminalization of politics that should concern Americans, but the politicization of crime.

Blogger Mark A. R. Kleiman is harsher toward the conservatives under investigation.

* William Kristol is chairman of the Project for a New American Century, a think tank that has tried since 1998 to justify another war with Iraq.

Update

Think Progress on how Fox News is pushing the phrase “criminalization of politics:”

According to a database search, every single television reference to the CIA leak scandal as the “criminalization of politics” in the last 30 days has been on Fox. Even more stunning: on every occassion, the phrase was introduced into the segment by a Fox News anchor or correspondent, never by a guest.