In an October 11 editorial on ethics scandals in Washington, USA Today cherry-picked polling data to suggest that voters view Democrats just as negatively as they do Republicans on the issue of corruption.

The editorial noted that Americans, according to an October 6-8 USA Today/Gallup poll, “consider corruption an important issue,” and that “some 68% [of respondents] had a negative view on the Republican-controlled Congress.” “But,” the editorial warned, “lest the Democrats think the bad news pertains only to the GOP, a Washington Post/ABC News poll found that 75% believed the Democrats would have botched the Foley matter had he been one of theirs.”

However, the editorial omitted results, including from the paper's own polling, that, on its stated subject of ethics in Washington -- an issue that the editorial specifically framed as broader than just the scandal surrounding former Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) -- indicate that Americans, by wide margins, think Democrats would do a better job handling the issue. The October 5-8 ABC News/Washington Post poll found that 49 percent of respondents said they “trust” the Democratic party to “do a better job handling” “ethics in government,” while only 30 percent said that they trust Republicans more on the issue. Similarly, the October 6-8 USA Today/Gallup poll reported that 49 percent of respondents said that “Democrats in Congress” would “do a better job of dealing with ... corruption in government,” while only 28 percent chose “Republicans in Congress.”

From the October 11 USA Today editorial, titled "Voters begin to revolt as capital ethics sink":

But the Foley episode is hardly the only embarrassment. For more than a year, Congress has been wallowing in a variety of bribery scandals, most notably one involving former lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who ran a vast influence-buying network. These scandals have exposed members of Congress and the Bush administration accepting gifts, including meals, tickets and even vacations. Yet a Congress too attached to its perks has done virtually nothing to clean up the mess.

Legislatively, the past few years have been marked by a distinct inactivity on vital issues, and a frenzy of action for the benefit of favored interests. Congress has handed out freebies to energy companies, ceiling-fan importers, Oldsmobile dealers and many others. It has come down hard on debtors whom credit companies shouldn't have lent money to in the first place. And it has let American corporations avoid taxes on tens of billions of dollars they had stashed overseas. It has not, however, done anything to make health insurance more affordable or available, or taken on illegal immigration in a meaningful way.

The public is catching on to this disconnect. A USA TODAY/Gallup Poll this weekend showed that 86% of the respondents considered corruption an important issue. That's the same number who said Iraq is important and more than those who said terrorism is.

Some 68% had a negative view on the Republican-controlled Congress, but lest the Democrats think the bad news pertains only to the GOP, a Washington Post-ABC News Poll found that 75% believed the Democrats would have botched the Foley matter had he been one of theirs.

Lost in all of the attention to the Foley case was the abrupt resignation of Susan Ralston, a former Abramoff aide who worked in the White House for adviser Karl Rove. According to a House Government Reform Committee report, Ralston was one of several White House staffers who accepted, and even solicited, Abramoff freebies.