The Tim Mahoney story — about the Democratic congressman who paid his mistress hush money — is getting limited coverage. It is not because it isn’t an easily told story, a juicy one, one with handy available audio and one revealing the utter depravity that characterizes too much of Washington insiders’ behavior. One need only listen to the tape to appreciate what a loathsome individual Mahoney is. And the FBI has now opened an investigation. This raises multiple issues.

First, you won’t find a better example of the different treatment which Democrats and Republicans receive from the MSM. The Mahoney scandal isn’t receiving any “top of the show” or “above the fold” coverage even for one day. Compare that to the wall-to-wall coverage that blanketed the airwaves and newspapers for weeks regarding Mark Foley, the Republican congressman who represented the same district and sent inappropriate e-mails to a male page.

Nor is there much scrutiny being applied to Democratic leaders, including Rahm Emanuel, who apparently knew of Mahoney’s conduct (how much, we don’t know) as far back as 2007. Compare this to the “what did the Republican leadership know and when did they know it” treatment that Denny Hastert et. al received in 2006.

Second, the National Republican Congressional Committee has begun to try to “nationalize” the issue. Rep. John Boehner’s office issued a press release rightly calling this a “gravely serious matter,” and calling the Democratic response “entirely inadequate.” It remains unclear whether this will become an overarching issue for other Democrats who haven’t exactly done a bang up job distinguishing themselves from the Republican majority’s record on corruption and misconduct. (The ad in Florida ranks up there as one of the most devastating ever.)

Finally, as Peter points out, we forget at our peril the centrality of character in public life. By passing off past associations and conduct as a “mere distraction” we wind up rationalizing and protecting officials who should be shunned. If candidates are only a collection of policy positions and fine political rhetoric we are left with a quandary: why exactly should we care about a Mahoney?

Perhaps this is a small lesson, one which will take hold among a broader segment of the electorate: character does count for something. We can at least hope.