Political Corruption or Personal Sleaze?

Is it political corruption or personal sleaze? Read Robert Freer’s article below to find out the difference and why it matters.

By Robert E. Freer, Jr., President of The Free Enterprise Foundation

According to Wikepedia, “In broad terms, political corruption is the misuse by government officials of their governmental powers for illegitimate, usually secret, private enrichment. Misuse of government power for other purposes, like repression of political opponents and general police brutality, is not considered political corruption.” Not that misuse for such other use is commendable; it just travels under another name such as tyranny or dictatorship. To these descriptors we can add the highly evocative “sleaze” In time it may be found that former congressman Mark Foley may have violated no

Federal or Florida laws with his salacious emails. Whatever is the result of that process, we can be assured that with his life in tatters, he has been and will continue to suffer real punishment. What concerns us is the odor of “sleaze” and the righteous indignation at someone in his position of power carrying on in such a way. It hurts our confidence in government generally. More particularly it hurts Republican government more because the party and its members hold themselves to a higher standard of behavior. Congressman Jefferson can be caught with $90,000 in “cold” cash in his freezer, and there is only a muted cry at this Democratic misdeed.

The fact for all of us to accept is that there is no corner on either morality or dissolute behavior in either party. Our founders knew this and wisely protected us against our weaknesses by dividing power so that personal weaknesses in one branch would not doom us all. Personal corruption, “sleaze”, as opposed to the formal definition above knows no political affiliation. It is highly personal, and its punishment should be personal. We can assume that if you put 535 ambitious, bright people at the center of a honey pot, at least a few of them will be other than paragons of virtue. Over time their weakness will be revealed. How much do we really want to spend on watching our legislators every step? The press does a good job of that already. The occasional occurrence of “sleaze’ is personal and does not necessarily reflect adversely on governmental diligence.

Scandal, whether you are speaking about Bobby Baker from the Johnson Administration or Mark Foley from this Congress, has been with us down through the ages. We need a healthy sense of proportion to keep our eyes on the donut not the hole. Politics and corruption was a frequent target of Will Rogers’s humor. He speaks for the man in the street when he says, “The more you read and observe about this Politics thing, you got to admit that each party is worse than the other. The one that's out always looks the best.”

What should be important to us is how those in charge face up to both corruption and “sleaze”. It remains to be seen as far as the current election year maneuvering how it will be handled by The House and what its effect will be nationally on our midterm election only a few weeks away, but remember Speaker Tip O’Neal’s proscription that “All politics is local.”

If you want to prove that for yourself, ask yourself or your neighbors about your local Congressman or your state’s Senator. How do you or they feel about him or her? Do the national news stories make any real difference in how you will vote? Almost unanimously the answer to that question confounds the pollsters. Despite a lean one direction or the other in national preference polling, Tip is invariably right. It is the local issues and how those issues have been served by your representatives that determine whether he will be returned to office. In a recent poll, 60% of voters expressed an individual preference for their serving representative though favoring control by The Democrats.

What is perhaps more significant and may signal a coming party realignment is that in 2006, 38% percent of voters identify themselves as independent. That is up from 30% not long ago, and I am noticing in my correspondence, a common trend regardless of party affiliation on issues of civil rights, and other issues that directly reflect on our understanding as to what America stands for.

Conservatives as much as liberals are deeply troubled about what winning this war may signify in what it means to Americans to be American. We have traditionally felt superior to the rest of the world because of our standards, and this war has made doubters out of liberals and conservatives alike. Are we like Pogo philosophized a generation ago, “We have met the enemy and it is us.”?

While understanding my friends’ concerns, and in no way minimizing the risk, I don’t think so. Again I turn to the great wisdom of Will Rogers and his comment during the very difficult days of the Depression. With his “[t]his country is not where it is today on account of any one man. It is here on account of the real common sense of the Big Normal Majority.”, he makes us realize that while our form of government is designed to protect us, it is we ourselves with our “hard wired” insistence on protection of basic values that is the continuing sentinel on our behavior.

This great land reflects us. We are a great people in part because we care so very much about these issues. We are a great people also because throughout two centuries, regardless of the compromises we have had to make to survive, and no matter our chagrin at our own “lapse” of principle, the “Big Normal Majority” has moved almost as one to restore our individual liberty and national progress once the danger was vanquished.

Today only historians talk much about the substantial damage the great liberator Lincoln did to our liberties to preserve the Union, and much of what was done during WWII to maintain our national security has yet to be fully told. In neither case was it pretty, but the nation does not hold its head in shame for having done what it had to in order to survive.

To survive as a nation, eternal vigilance is required but that is at all levels and in all precincts. The anxiety is a symptom of our continuing humanity. I am glad for it. As for some of the bitterest rhetoric, rather than damn the House leadership, let’s see what unfolds. Rather than assault our President, let’s pray for him and take comfort that he has deliberately put together such an outstanding bipartisan commission to consider all of our options in Iraq and promised to listen with fresh ears to their suggestions.

Copyright © 2007 by Robert E. Freer, Jr. All rights reserved

About the author: Robert E. Freer, Jr. is President of The Free Enterprise Foundation. He is a Visiting Professor, at The Citadel and elected in 2005 to be their first John S. Grinalds Leader in Residence. A regular contributor to the Mercury, He can be reached by E-mail at The Citadel . Copies of his earlier columns can be found The Free Enterprise Foundation.

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