Tom DeLay’s recent indictment on alleged campaign finance violations set off a giddy chorus from the usual Democratic suspects. Republicans can take comfort in noting that the frenzy suggests the Democrats, bereft of an idea of what to do in the war on Islamic terror other than immediately retreat from Iraq and unwilling to save Social Security other than by raising taxes, have chosen to avoid debate on the substance and focus instead on ethics, or what the Democratic National Committee is calling a “culture of corruption.”

Howard Dean’s DNC Web site has sounded like something that might have come out of Republicans while the Clinton administration was in office. “With top party leaders like Tom DeLay, Karl Rove, and Bill Frist under investigation, it’s clear that a deep culture of corruption pervades the Republican Party,” the DNC Web site said. “Whether it’s putting unqualified cronies in positions of power, skirting campaign finance laws, or abusing their power to smear their enemies, Republicans will do whatever it takes to achieve their political ends, no matter how unethical or even illegal.”

The Democrats still have a way to go before they reach a lather over ethics comparable to that the Republicans achieved in 1996. Just 21 days before losing the election that year, the Republican presidential candidate, Robert Dole, gave a big speech in San Diego about the Democrats’ integrity gap. “We have seen more than 30 Clinton officials investigated, fired or forced to resign due to ethical improprieties. We have seen four independent counsels at work, three investigating members of the cabinet and one looking at the president himself,” Mr. Dole said then, before losing the popular vote to Mr. Clinton by about 8 million.

The Republican strategy didn’t work then because Mr. Dole failed to offer a compelling platform on real issues. In contrast, George W. Bush won in 2000 by eschewing an ad hominem approach and, while promising to restore honor and dignity to the White House, focusing his campaign on a substantive tax and education agenda. When even Frank Rich is complaining, as he did recently, that the Democrats are “bereft of leadership and ideas,” it’s way too early for the donkeys to start celebrating. One reason the Democrats are making so much of a few ethics investigations aimed at Republicans is because the party chaired by Governor Dean has so little to offer in the way of a substantive agenda for America’s problems and the world’s.