With news of former Rep. Mark Foley's sadly salacious e-mails to young
congressional pages, the end-of-empire collapse of public ethics in
Washington seems a defining moment.
We knew our leadership class was corrupt -- power does that to people
-- we just didn't know how corrupt. It isn't just Foley's hustling of
16-year-old male pages. It's the way his colleagues winked at his
proclivities for years because they benefited from his largess. It's
the ugliness of the powerful treating pages, interns and young
aspirants as their harem.
It's the spectacle of House Speaker Dennis Hastert fighting to retain
his job, not to show buck-stops-here leadership. It's the familiar
cycle after malfeasance is unearthed: an expression of minimal remorse,
followed by a macho determination not to cave in, then a self-appointed
committee to investigate, giving the appearance of action in hopes of
reversing polls.
It's the immediate rush of Christian conservatives to score culture-war
points by using Foley's behavior as the next wedge against gays.
In Washington, it's sex and power, campaign funds and polls, macho
posing, dodging accountability and sending other parents' children to
war.
Even worse, it's unconcern. Washington's political class seems immune
to shame and deaf to a nation's actual worries. They manipulate the
religious.
They make promises but avoid action. They sell government's favors to
high bidders. They rig election districts to make their tenures
perpetual. They use war in Iraq and Afghanistan to frighten voters but
do nothing to preserve military capability or hold leaders accountable.
Glimpses of this rot -- a sobering parallel to the final days of the
Roman Empire -- pour daily from Washington. But if you stand far enough
back, the daily headlines form a tragic picture: a divided nation
facing huge challenges, needing to join hands to define a worthy
future, being manipulated by officeholders and their special-interest
and religious bedfellows.
Meanwhile, a Florida congressman solicits sex from bewildered boys, and
his colleagues see discovery as the only danger.
______________________________________________
Tom Ehrich is an Episcopal priest, writer and consultant.
His Web site is www.onajourney.org.
.
|
