The Wall Street Journal

Once upon a time, a first lady would take to the cover of Parade magazine to inspire ordinary Americans with behind-the-scenes tales about the first family’s wonderful White House life. Nowadays, the first lady takes to the cover of Tina Brown’s hot new Talk magazine, glosso di tutti glossi, to titillate star-struck Americans with behind-the-scenes tales of the president’s dysfunctional upbringing and marital infidelity.

A glossy magazine cover featuring Gwyneth Paltrow along with Hillary Clinton and George W. Bush, of all people, would once have been unimaginable. By now, the only question is which one will be wearing the bikini. (Gwyneth, thank God.) Jerry Springer, the onetime Cincinnati mayor turned TV freak-show host, has joined Mrs. Clinton in considering a race for the Senate. Perhaps when Sen. Clinton delivers a speech in the 107th Congress, the C-Span caption will read not “D., N.Y.,” but “My husband cheated on me because he was abused as a child!”

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The Washington Times

AN INSTANCE IS NOT A TENDENCY, let alone a trend, let alone the opening of a floodgate. But the case of the switch of Rep. Michael Forbes of New York from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party bears keeping an eye on. GOPAC, the political committee that came to fame under the tutelage of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, has kept careful track of party switchers nationwide, not only at the national level but state and local officeholders as well. In the past six years, more than 400 officials have switched from Democrat to Republican, including two U.S. senators and a handful of representatives. There were few more than a handful of switches in the other direction, none particularly high profile.

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View this article at Policy Review, August/September 1999

ELIZABETH DREW.  The Corruption of American Politics: What Went Wrong and Why. BIRCH LANE PRESS. 278 pages. $21.95 

IS AMERICAN POLITICS corrupt? Those who raise the issue usually think it is, and the reason they think so is money. The specter is a grim one: Vast moneyed interests — corporations, wealthy individuals, single-issue groups — seek to work the political system to their own advantage. Our politicians either eagerly assign themselves as tools of these interests, in order to enrich their campaigns, or soon find themselves the victims of them, targeted for political destruction for hewing an independent line. A political process in which politicians are bought and sold — that is the condition of American governance we are invited to contemplate.

Not, to be sure, that most of those making this accusation are quite willing to pull the trigger. Almost no one names Rep. X, Sens. Y and Z, and administration officials A, B, and C as having been bought and paid for. We do, after all, have laws against bribery, taking illegal gratuities, using your office for personal financial gain or for the personal financial benefit of others, and other forms of corruption in office — as well as corresponding laws aimed at those trying to influence public officials improperly. These are serious crimes. Nor are the laws merely window dressing, the tribute vice pays to virtue in an otherwise corrupt system. From time to time, public officials and private citizens go off to prison for running afoul of them. So in this system supposedly shot through with corruption, where are the specific accusations of corrupt action?

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