Partisan Hacking in Congress

It sounds like a Beltway episode of "The Pink Panther": Congressional detectives have seized computers from the Senate Judiciary Committee in an investigation of how suspected Republican mischief-makers leaked minority Democrats' confidential memos to sympathetic media outlets. The sergeant-at-arms has called in espionage experts to help in grilling dozens of Capitol staff members. But the affair is hardly comical; in fact, it is further sad evidence ? as if any were needed ? of the blood-sport level of partisanship in Washington.

At first, the Republican majority denied any G.O.P. complicity after the memos were leaked and published. The documents detailed how Democratic senators had strategized and consulted outside interest groups dedicated to opposing some of President Bush's more extreme judicial nominees. But after the police moved in last week, Senator Orrin Hatch, the Utah Republican who is the Judiciary Committee's chairman, reversed himself and announced that he had been "shocked" to find out that it was a member of his own staff who had hacked into the minority's computer files.

"I am mortified," he said in acknowledging the breach of confidentiality. "There's no excuse that can justify these improper actions."

In practice, though, partisan zealotry has often been the justification for much of the workings on Capitol Hill. Republicans, long under the heel of Democrats, waxed triumphalist in finally gaining majority control of both houses. Democrats have been largely ignored in the making of major legislation and have even been denied a share in hometown pork projects for voting against the G.O.P. budget.

Vindictive politicking was regularly practiced by Democrats in their majority, too. But what is happening now is nothing short of a ratcheting up toward self-satire. The parties view the nation as so microscopically divided that no initiative should be overlooked in approaching the power struggle in next year's elections. Nonetheless, stooping to Senate pilferage is hardly a clarion call to victory.