Ethics panel recommends House censure Republican Rep. Chuck Edwards for conduct with two aides

An ethics panel doesn't recommend censure over nothing, and "I didn't mean it that way" has never been much of a defense once investigators have already looked at the evidence and decided it warrants the House's most public form of discipline short of expulsion. Edwards can deny romantic or sexual intent all he wants. That's a question about his state of mind. It doesn't answer the question of what he actually did to two staffers who apparently felt strongly enough about it to report it.

We've said before that the party that wants to be trusted with power has to be willing to hold its own accountable, not just the other side's. That's not some abstract standard we trot out for headlines. It's the difference between a party that means what it says about integrity and one that only cares when the guy in trouble has a D next to his name. If the ethics committee, run by members of both parties, looked at this and concluded censure is warranted, Republicans shouldn't be scrambling to explain it away.

There's a real difference between a workplace misunderstanding and a pattern of conduct serious enough to draw a formal committee recommendation, and right now the public doesn't have the full picture of which one this is. That's worth being honest about instead of pretending the story is simpler than it is. But denying intent isn't the same as denying the conduct happened, and voters deserve members who can tell the two apart even when it's their own colleague on the hook.