Now it’s clearer. The federal prosecution of former Virginia
Governor Bob McDonnell and his wife spotlights the potential behavior of many
serving politicians – behavior that has been with us for many years.
Argue all we want about the felony convictions of the two
and the inevitable effect on partisan politics in the near-term, the case should
challenge our disingenuous view of “democracy.”
That is because in today’s America – one foreshadowed by Alexis
deToqueville in the 19th Century – if we the peeps want to have our
views acted upon, we must bring wads of cash to the table. It is naive to lean upon the ideals we learned in the seventh grade.
We still have the
power of the ballot. It could be our last, best hope of retrieving the
“democracy” we inherited, fought wars to keep, paid taxes to support, and still
brag about to the rest of the world.
On the other hand, all this happy talk dulls, once we think
more about the implications of the McDonnell case.
The truth is that politicians are not going to enact
meaningful campaign finance reform. Big bucks still drive political outcomes. Now
federal prosecutors are going to fill in for our failure to demand campaign and
ethical reform. Are you comfortable with a politicized federal Justice Department
overseeing what goes on in your local courthouse?
We have reaped what we have sown by inattention. We shrink
into our comfy little niches and seem to assume that somehow it’s “all going to work out.” That’s a cop-out with an important corollary: that it does not make any difference anyway,
so why bother. We’ve got soccer matches to get to.
In a significant op-ed piece in the Richmond Times-Dispatch Sept. 13 Bob Rayner, associate editorial page editor, wrote this:
“The federal government’s choice
to criminalize the bad decisions of one politician made within the framework of
a set of lax state laws, the same laws followed by his predecessors and
countless legislators over many years, should terrify anyone who believes
society benefits from the rule of law."
Think about that the next time a politician comes calling…and remember
your history:
"Let them eat cake,” Marie Antoinette said. And on the boulevard, the
tricoteuses knitted shawls while the manacled doomed were trundled to the spectacle
of heads rolling from the guillotine.