American corruption

I like Michael Kinsley and think he's one of the sharpest editorialists in the land, despite many people's misgivings about some of his particular claims. I quit reading him when he moved to the LA Times, for no particular reason other than not having registered for the online version.

Take a look at this little article in the Washington Post by Kinsley from Friday, reposted here at Truthout. He's right, of course. American politics is corrupt to its core. Some of my colleagues detest this kind of claim, and I know it's true that many good people work in politics. But during the past several years we've seen corruption that would make a South American dictator blush. This is part of the reason why I ultimately moved from teaching philosophy -- my doctoral background -- to teaching philosophical problems in policy (and vice versa). I see some really good people move from graduate studies to positions in government, so I don't despair. But corruption is corruption. It's time to start telling it like it is. Kinsley gets this one right on the mark, although I think it's more than simply "business as usual" -- that is indeed the cynic's claim. But it's only the title of Kinsley's article that is wrong here.

...Like medieval scholastics counting the angels on the head of a pin, Justice Department lawyers are struggling with the question of when favors to and from a member of Congress or a congressional aide take on the metaphysical quality of a corrupt bribe. The brazenness of the DeLay-Abramoff circle has caused prosecutors to look past traditional distinctions, such as that between campaign contributions and cash or other favors to a politician personally. Or the distinction between doing what a lobbyist wants after he has taken you to Scotland to play golf and promising to do what he wants before he takes you to Scotland to play golf.

These distinctions don't really touch on what's corrupt here, which is simply the ability of money to give some people more influence than others over the course of a democracy where, civically if not economically, we are all supposed to be equal. So where do you draw the line between harmless favors and corrupt bribery?

It's not an easy question if you're talking about sending people to prison. But it's a very easy question if you're just talking: The answer is that it's all corrupt bribery. People and companies hire lobbyists because it works. Lobbyists get the big bucks because their efforts earn or save clients even bigger bucks in their dealings with the government. Members of Congress are among the world's greatest bargains: What is a couple of commodes compared with $163 million worth of Pentagon contracts?

See also this article from the Center for Public Integrity.

White House staffers such as Karl Rove have a lot more options than most ordinary folks when they want to get away for a while. Whether it's for trips to the snowy ski slopes of Colorado or the sandy beaches of Key West, plenty of corporations and other organizations are willing to pick up the tab in exchange for priceless face time with some of the most powerful people in Washington, D.C.