So I will enable you to get past the pay firewall without using up any of your monthly quota of ten articles to read A New Era in Political Corruption
.
It starts with her opening paragraph:
Have you ever noticed how high the bar is when it comes to getting arrested for political corruption? Really, you practically have to go around with a sign that says “Will Trade Influence for Cash.”
And that is just the start of a column inspired or provoked (you choose) by the arrests for political corruption etc. in New York this week. She says the politicians involved have acted in such a stupid way
it shatters our longstanding confidence that taking money was the one thing they know how to do well.
Please keep reading for more snips. Unless you are going to go to her column right now, in which case the rest of this post is unnecessary.
Still here?
Let me try again to persuade you.
How about this paragraph:
According to the indictments, one Republican official from Queens frisked a briber, who was actually an undercover F.B.I. agent, to make sure he wasn’t wearing a wire. Then failed to find the wire. Then took the bribe while being recorded. This all happened at a super-secret meeting at Sparks, the steakhouse where John Gotti had Paul Castellano rubbed out. I believe there should be an unwritten rule in criminal conspiracy that you do not schedule your big payoff at the most famous gangland murder site in Manhattan.
Or this:
Everybody was taping everybody! Plus these secret plots seemed to require more participants than the cast of “Game of Thrones.” All of them muttering what sounded like lines stolen from Season Two of “Bad Knockoff Sopranos.”
There are actually some serious moments in this piece:
“Most lawmakers in Congress do a lot of that stuff. They’re just more tactful in how they go about it,” said Melanie Sloan of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
Collins quotes Crew on the ethical problems with Bob Menendez - non, not the fake story about the hookers, the real one about using influence to help a large corporation that just so happened to have contribute $700K to his campaign. Collins notes the shock of Menendez that anyone might consider this a
quid pro quo and then writes
“At least he’s expensive,” Sloan said.
By now I SHOULD have convinced you to go read it.
Not yet?
Trust me, there's more worth your time.
Here's her concluding brief paragraph:
So, here’s a hopeful thought: maybe you can hit a point of ethical bankruptcy where, for want of anybody else to sell out, all the plotters betray each other.
And if that does not convince you to go read the entire piece, I give up!