"Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue." - Francois duc de la
Rochefoucauld, French epigrammatist (1613-1680)
Oh for the good old days when Jimmy Carter lusted only in his heart. Now
deviancy's downward spiral has reached the level where a United States
senator pleads guilty to cruising an airport men's room in search of an
anonymous "quickie" and is forced to resign.
Sen. (until Sept. 30) Larry Craig of Idaho labored as a second-tier
Republican member of Congress until news that he pled guilty to a
misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct became public. He then rocketed to
first-tier status, though not for the reason any politician would wish. His
sins, not his legislative skills, had found him out. He became fodder for
late-night comedians and a problem for the self-righteous community, which
hoped that Senate voters would not penalize Republicans come election time,
if they expunged Craig from the Senate.
During the last election campaign, now-Speaker Nancy Pelosi charged that a
"culture of corruption" exists in Washington. She was right. The political
culture is corrupt and that corruption is not the exclusive property of
Republicans, as anyone with a sense of even recent history knows. Like a
virus that does not discriminate among those it seeks to infect, the culture
of corruption threatens almost everyone who comes in contact with it. Even
the most noble of freshmen members of Congress must eventually compromise
when it comes to fund raising and pork barrel projects, if they want to
remain in office. Sex gets our attention; waste, fraud and abuse of our tax
dollars less so. That says something about us and about our scandalous
priorities, even more than it does about those we elect to office.
When the goal of a "public servant" is a never-ending political career and
not doing what's best for the country, that is when whatever immune system
he might have brought to Washington begins to break down. It is extremely
difficult for a senator or house member to remain in Congress 20, 30 or more
years and either not be corrupted, or become separated from the real world.
Politicians can quickly get out of touch and embrace an entitlement
mentality that, at the extreme, results in Oval Office shenanigans (Bill
Clinton), or its trailer trash equivalent (Larry Craig and Sen. David
Vitter, Louisiana Republican, whose name showed up on the D.C. Madam's
client phone list), or fund-raisers who break the law (fugitive Norman Hsu,
who raised lots of cash for Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and others.)