Political Corruption

Every corrupt politician's favorite rant is against political corruption. As a rule, the more corrupt the more ranting.

It is hard to imagine a political scene without corruption. Willie Stark (when setting up an opponent's suicide) in All the King's Men, said, "Man is conceived in sin and born in corruption and he passeth from the stink of the didie to the stench of the shroud. There is always something."

Politicians who steal are as common as junkies with bindles. Deuteronomy and Timothy both warn us not to muzzle the ox that grinds the grain. I've heard insiders use this as the justification for allowing a little corruption. A popular saying in Austin about Texas lobbyists, is that if you can't take their money, screw their women, drink their whiskey and still vote against them, you don't belong in the legislature.

One method is to get the million dollar cash bond from the drug dealer, knowing he will jump bond. The county gets the money, and this improves everyone's (politician's) living conditions and patronage, and who cares about the drug dealer anyway. He won't come back.

Another form of this corruption is to cruise the poor area of town and find cars that were too expensive for the house. Go ask the homeowner if anyone claims the car and often they'll say "no." Then the District Attorney's office has a lot of cool cars for undercover operations or resale. It is also a way to get houses, cash, heavy gold chains and Scarface posters.

I can't muster much outrage anymore. After a while, neither could Lincoln Steffens, who made it his career. I've often suspected that the small bribes in the Mexico I visited in the 1960's and 70's were less harmful than the high cost of entering the legal system in the United States that excluded so many people (then and now).

I don't believe Robert Penn Warren was much outraged either. Another quote from All the King's Men:

Process as process is neither morally good nor morally bad. We
may judge results, but not process. The morally bad agent may perform the
deed which is good. The morally good agent may perform the deed which is
bad. Maybe a man has to sell his soul to get the power to do good.

Happy Saint Paddy's Day and a Kind Word for Corruption

Of course, I love politics.

It beats cutting sod.

Saint Patrick's day makes me think of corruption and why we need it. My Irish-born grandma had no question about the issue. "There is honest and then there is damn honest," she would say. It was good to be honest, but only a fool would be damn honest.

Self-righteousness about corruption was fine if you were a Dutchman or a Black and Tan who owned the country anyway, but if you were a Mick, and had to buy some influence, well, it was because you did not have any. However the injunction, "do not muzzle the ox that treads out the corn," may be interpreted by theologians, she knew it justified the small bribe to the building inspector or the cop.

Lincoln Steffens (Does anyone know who he is anymore? Do journalist read and revere him in school?) recognized the good the corrupt big city bosses did for common people. Reformers, for all of their pious self-assurance, ultimately served the interests of the aristocracy.

Harry Truman went back for the funeral of Boss Pendergast, saying if he did not he would be an ungrateful son of a bitch.

If you are in a system where a small bribe to the arresting officer can serve the same purpose as hiring an expensive law firm, access to the system is more democratic.

We may differ on other issues, but I have trouble getting exercised about accusations that Eddie and Rene have used campaign funds to pay for rat poison and dry cleaning.

We can either elect independently wealthy candidates who will serve the black and tans or we can elect people who need the money. Since neither state representative nor state senator pay enough to survive, we fairly well insist that the lawyers accept clients to peddle influence and the non-lawyers start consulting companies to peddle influence.

These are the choices: elect the rich, elect a saint or expect some trade of influence for the good life. Saints are in short supply and as a rule I would prefer little corruptions of a broke candidate to the big structural corruptions of a rich one.

This being the case, there are two rules for the office holder: 1. Don't be too greedy. 2. Try to peddle influence to the less odious players.

1. The sin is less in the corruption, than in getting rich in office. Lyndon is said to have lamented that people did not love him because he got rich in office. Pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered.

2. Don't peddle to the TMA, credit card companies, asbestos companies and tax collection lawyers. Peddle to unions, environmental organizations, personal injury lawyers and teachers. They don't pay as well, but you will be more likely to go to heaven.

In truth, as far as I know, my old grandma never prayed to Saint Patrick. Usually it was Saint Jude. Saint Patrick may have been the patron saint of Ireland and chased out the snakes. Saint Jude, though, took care of hopeless causes. We needed miracles more than we were worried about snakes.