June 9, 2003
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The Twin Poverties of Nobility and Fortitude
by P.M. Carpenter
In this Orwellian age of elephantine strikes against mice that roar, broad coalitions consisting of two, universal tax relief that relieves the few, and receptive leadership that ignores the led, naming the blameworthy seems an easy task. They are, of course, the ones perpetrating the fraud. Yes? Yet history's indictment may produce a hung jury when deciding the culpable: the obvious -- those corrupt schemers who pulled the job; or the not so obvious -- those feckless invertebrates who idled by.
The schemers are despicable enough all right, and like other national histories, America's has suffered no deficiency of their numbers. Likewise, given our whorish ways of electing government, neither have we suffered from any excess of political fortitude. Whores and worms have always infested our ship of state.
Since the party system's early-nineteenth-century formation the commonwealth has been cursed -- and the commentariat blessed -- by the political underworld's assorted Richard Nixons. In the spirit of American optimism, we as a people incline to a Whiggish sense of history -- ever progress, ever improvement -- but no matter how many laws accrue to deter the politically villainous from villainy, we'll forever have the corrupt at heart and corrupt in deed. If you happen to deem consistency a virtue, despicable politics are a daily comfort.
As goes most everything else, for two centuries the level of despicability has ebbed and flowed. Today, in the executive mansion and congressional majorities, it stands at the highest watermark ever, submerging all known historical instances of political deception, lawlessness and even naked buffoonery.
Leaving aside the G.O.P.'s programmed kingpin, whose arrested intellect indeed requires programming, no person better exemplifies the reigning party's poverty of nobility than House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. Unlike his fellow Texan and titular boss, Tom is an authentic prodigy needing no instruction, no programming, no nothing on how to achieve historic heights of political depravity and abuse high office through dictatorial high-handedness.
His most recent escapade -- that of defrauding the federal government over a state government comedy -- is a lesson in modern conservatism's rather standard procedure. Scheme, then strike, then deceive, then modify first and second and third explanations and last, reason correctly that the hubbub raised will soon melt away. Faced with a craven press and the equally craven political opposition, to label it charitably, DeLay need not fret. Whether unethical or illegal, his behavior is obligingly forgiven. As DeLay hurdles propriety yet again, the bar is not elevated, as one might expect, but lowered again.
The ones sharing the bar-lowering work are not a few congressional Democrats -- and exemplifying this invertebrate bunch is Senator Joe Biden. Responding, of sorts, on national television to a question about DeLay’s conspicuous abuse of power, the diplomatic-to-a-fault, ever-coy senator said "I don’t know enough to comment on that." Biden added, "I'm just not qualified to comment." He at least got that right.
If Joe were qualified and if Joe understood that a loyal opposition's chief loyalty is to official probity, he would have revealed "enough" knowledge (which of course he had) to expose and condemn DeLay's actions. For eight years Bill Clinton's opposition skipped the "knowing" process and proceeded directly to condemnation. With both political weapons at his disposal, Biden should have carved up DeLay's liver.
From the Texas congressman's political perversions to White House national-security scams and fiscal malfeasance, negligible were the sins and misdemeanors of the previous administration.
Conservatism once professed a restrained presence of centralized power, while justly warning of the antidemocratic and destructive arrogance that springs from its antithesis. That righteous message is now merely self-righteous -- and the self-righteous are upon us with predictable consequences.
With characteristic lack of party discipline and creeping pointlessness, Democrats are permitting predatory con artists to roam freely. So in the larger scheme of things, who will history say was the more culpable?
P.M. Carpenter holds a Ph.D. in American History from the University of Illinois and is a syndicated columnist and artist. Contact your local newspaper and ask it to carry his weekly column.
© Copyright 2003, P. M. Carpenter
