Lord Acton revisited

"Absolute power corrupts absolutely".
- Lord Acton

Lord Acton would surely recognize our current national debate about the culture of corruption; absolute power for the right has created a culture in which every law can be broken, every action can be taken by those in power, without serious fear of censure or punishment. The guardians of proper behavior - a free press, the separation of powers, congressional ethics committees - have long since ceased to function. And power has become, literally, its own reward.

Apologists for the right like to claim that the current deluge of corruption cases and assorted other criminalities, washing onto the front pages with all the regularity of the tides, is a case of a few bad apples.

Not so.

The right has created a culture of corruption, true enough; that's what happens when you sell your soul to those with deep pockets. Of course a stream of warm dollars and other benefices will wash over yoursense of judgment. But there's more to it than that, as you can see when you consider the cases that are currently under review.

In short, between talk radio, Faux "News", the blogs, the pundit class, and the bootlicking MSM, there are so many apologists out there ready to spin even the most egregious criminality away that no R has need to worry about his actions. Take Tom DeLay; Faux "News" will defend him to their last breath, until the jailhouse door clangs shut behind him. George Bush is currently breaking the FISA Act, but is he worried? Nope - because the noise machine and dittoheads by the million robotically repeat the talking points they've been given, and the Congress is of course emasculated. Meanwhile, over at the Department of Justice, Alberto "Torture Memo" Gonzales has his own reasons to dread the workings of justice.

What incentive - other than, cough, innate virtue - do people like Bush and DeLay have to not break the law? None. Bush is practically immune from the craven bootlickers in Congress. DeLay was equally so until criminal charges were finally brought. Both are equally insulated from the fourth estate by the noise machine; which is why all of these scandal stories play on the he-said, she-said model, with real charges being contrasted with right-wing spin.

So what's to stop some lowly Congresspeon - like California's Doolittle, Ohio's Ney, New York's Sweeney or the disgraced Randy Cunningham - from playing fast and loose with rules whose enforcement they have no real reason to anticipate?

If anything, we should probably be glad our overlords in Congress are not more corrupt and more criminal - because there's nothing stopping them from being thus. Certainly not a reactionary machine so drunk on power, and polluted with its spoils, that it will not enforce even the most basic standards of human decency.

No, this will be up to the voters; and even this most basic level of accountability is a dead letter. Between gerrymandering and outright Ohio-style fraud, the right-wing rapists of America may very well continue on in their path.

Don't call it a "culture" of corruption; call it what it is, a perfect, systemic, self-insulated and finely calibrated assembly line of corruption. Because that's what it is.