Corruption, hypocrisy and politics
New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s fall from grace last week stunned friend and foe alike. How could a bright, Harvard-educated lawyer and former crime-fighting Attorney General do such a thing?
Sadly, Spitzer’s shenanigans are merely the latest in a pattern of high-level corruption and hypocrisy practiced by public officials. What makes his case so sensational is he was apparently practicing in private some of the same kinds of behavior he had become famous for denouncing and prosecuting in public.
Known variously as ‘Mr. Clean’ and ‘Sheriff of Wall Street,’ Spitzer was both revered and reviled. The regard New Yorkers once had for him is amply attested to by his overwhelming victory when he ran for governor in 2006.
However, once in office, Spitzer quickly made more enemies than friends. His arrogant, abrasive management style alienated many of the very powerful people he needed in his corner to successfully lead the third most populous state in the nation.
For now, the reasons for Spitzer’s bizarre behavior are perhaps known only to him. By any measure of sanity and objectivity, his abject failure to practice what he so self-righteously preached boggles the mind. Hence, politicians, pundits, pop psychologists and a plethora of others will continue to weigh in with their various views of why he did it.
Actually, we may never fully know why Eliot Spitzer went from shameless self-promotion to shameful self-destruction. What we do know is he has plenty of company. Indeed, corruption and hypocrisy appear to occur all too often among politicians of both parties at national, state and local levels.
Whoever said ‘power is the ultimate aphrodisiac’ may have been on to something. The power-lust connection is certainly evident in the aberrant acts of politicians, past and present. Moreover, it manifests itself in other areas of public and private life, from the corporate boardroom to the academic classroom.
The confluence of corruption and hypocrisy is, of course, nothing new. Instead, it transcends time and culture. From antiquity to modernity and continent to continent come prose and poetry aplenty to show that people in power tend to preach one thing and practice another.
What is new is the technology to track most every nook and cranny of public and private life. The availability of the latest technology practically guarantees that someone will figure out a way to use it to intrude on our daily lives. Ironically, Spitzer was both advocate and architect of some of the same surveillance and detection measures that were used to catch him.
Also relatively new is the pervasive presence of the media in all this. Television 24/7 needs news, or something like it, to survive. That’s why we see CNN, again and again, as well as all the other high-tech means of information gathering and dissemination.
We’re not immune to the temptations of corruption and hypocrisy either. Still, we expect a higher standard of conduct and performance from those who purport to serve the public.
Retired Army Col. Thomas B. Vaughn can be reached by e-mail at [email protected].