Kim Long - The Almanac of Political Corruption, Scandals, and Dirty Politics

The purification of politics is an
iridescent dream. Politics is a battle for
supremacy. The Decalogue and the
Golden Rule have no place in a political
campaign. The object is success.

Senator John Ingalls, 1890

Scandals in Government are not a new
phenomena. What seems to be new
about these scandals is the moral
blindness or callousness which allows
those in responsible positions to accept
the practices which the facts reveal.
It is bad enough for us to have
corruption in our midst, but it is worse
if it is to be condoned and accepted as
inevitable.

Senator J. William Fulbright, 1951

F or many American adults, contemporary political history has been defined more by negatives than positives. In the past thirty-odd years, major scandals have marked the executive and legislative branches of the federal government in a relentless parade of revealing headlines. Keywords now brand the recent presidencies: Iran-Contra, Watergate, Abscam, Whitewater, Monica Lewinsky. The collective response has been to lower our approval rating for the very officials who require the highest confidence.

When first exposed, any scandal now seems to have the potential to be career threatening, and too few voters are willing to take a politicians avowal of innocence at face value. Worse, many Americans believe that all politicians are taintedwith scandal, unethical standards, corrupt behavior, or similar substandard characterand the country is gradually regressing, losing its traditional values, and spiraling downward toward a degraded, immoral finale.

Is this perception appropriate, much less accurate? One of the goals of this project is to provide a new measuring rod with which to gauge the breadth and depth of the current political environment, both the activities of politicians and the process of electing them. A chronological historyfrom our colonial roots onwardprovides just such a unique barometer of reality. And it becomes quickly apparent, once this approach is underway, that the past provides a considerable wealth of evidence to support the folk saying, The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Pick any category of modern political wrongdoingsins of the flesh, theft, bribery, extortion, lies, cover-ups, election fraudand historical precedents are easy to find. Add an element missing from most political activity in the past few decades, bloodshed, and the historical record often outshines todays antics.

Yet our human inclination to focus on the sensational does us a disservice. Even in colonial America, people read newspapers, the main source of information about current events, but then, as now, normal isnt news. As the saying goes, its only news when the man bites the dog. The current and historical record of political misdoings covers just that, misdoings, not the standard, mundane, day-to-day operations that keep local and national systems operational.

Consider the bigger picture. Since the first Congress, just under 12,000 individuals have served in the U.S. House and Senate, but far less than one percent of these have been expelled, indicted, or tried for criminal activity. Only two presidents out of forty-two have been impeached, and neither of those was convicted. Out of more than 2,100 governors, only fifteen have been impeached, with only seven convicted after impeachment. A similar record holds for federal judges: more than 3,100 have served and only seven have been convicted after impeachment. Politicians who screw up are the exception, not the rule.

Even when politicians have erred and elections have been rigged, life goes on. The country and the Constitution have survived. Rules have been added to reduce opportunities for malfeasance, to remove barriers for participation in both politics and voting, and to provide fairer platforms for both. Those who do not play by the rulesthen or noware individuals who may be good people making bad decisions, sinister manipulators, or followers more willing to imitate their peers than do what is right. But these miscreants have one thing in common: they are all in the minority.

Here we focus on that minority with the knowledge that their brethren were tending to business while they were screwing up or screwing around. Its an equal opportunity expos, with plenty of room for participation regardless of party affiliation, wealth, intelligence, age, race, ethnicity, gender, or geographical location.

Most important, the story of this group of misfits is much more entertaining than that of their mainstream colleagues. And it is a story that is unlikely to end. With that in mind, we wrote the last line first to be continued.

A political cartoon entitled Election Day. McClures Magazine, March 1905.

T he United States created a demonstrably unique form of government after its independence from England, but it cant take credit for the concept of political corruption and scandal. British officials who were appointed to positions in the American colonies committed misdeeds from graft to bribery to extortion. One estimate of the loss to the British Treasury in the year 1765 due to corrupt colonial officials was 700,000 ($132 million in todays dollars). They had their share of scandals as well. Lord Cornbury (Edward Hyde), the appointed governor of the colonies of New York and New Jersey, was rumored to wear womens clothes, although some contemporary scholars believe this was false information spread by his political enemies. While his dressing habits may have given his subjects cause for concern, what got him in real trouble was his significant personal debt, a serious issue in those days. Because of this failing, he was stripped of his position by Queen Anne and locked up in an American debtors prison.

Francis Lovelace (16211675), colonial governor of New York, was credited with introducing important improvements during his term of leadership. But he also had his share of trouble. In 1670, residents of the colonys towns were requested to vote to approve a new tax to help expand the fortifications that protected New York City. Some towns in Long Island voted against the tax, which prompted Lovelace to have their votes publicly burned. He also benefited personally from the profits of a tavern that he built adjoining