Dancin' with the Winged Devil in D.C. (March 2011)

I was listening to my 9-year old's favorite pop station on the car radio and attended to the lyrics for a moment.  Rappers were chillin' 'bout their 'G6s,' which I came to understand referred to their Gulfstream Model 6 private jets.  It brought back a memory from 2000 when a rich dude and his wife offered us a ride back to Ft. Lauderdale from Mustique on their G5.

We had return flights booked back to NYC through Barbados, San Juan, and Miami, and the idea of a quick, check-in-less, security-less hop back to Florida was attractive.  But after an afternoon on a sailing cruise with them and cocktails the eve of our trip home, we agreed the two were too gross and annoying to put up with even for a few hours.  And honestly, for us to opt out on the G5 should speak tons about how bad they were.  Unimpressed with the island, what they were doing in a really cool spot like Mustique still puzzles me...but then again I was there, too, adventuring far outside my normal, more bucolic habitat.  Mustique was afterall the haunt of Tommy Hilfiger, Mick Jagger, Princess Margaret, and other lofty celebritainers.

One afternoon I was swimming off the beach and started back in after I noticed my wife chatting with a blond, who even without my eyeglasses, appeared to be tall, gorgeous, and topless.  By the time I made it to shore, the mysterious (well, blurry anyway) vision had wandered off.  When I (as casually as possible) asked who she was talking to, my wife said, "Just Heidi Klum.  She wondered if I knew what time the spa would reopen."

This 'RANT!' doesn't concern my fantasies about private jets and blond supermodels, but is rather is about our Congresspersons, lobbyists, campaign finance laws, Jeffersonian traditions, and...corruption.

You can click over to CNN's court reports about Congressional fraudsters, bribe-takers, philanderers, liars, pedophiles, and tax cheats.  For me it's not about lawbreakers and felons.  I want to address corruption of the soul, souls undermined and derailed by temptation, envy, pride, and vanity.  Biblical stuff.

Much is written and rewritten about how "absolute power corrupts absolutely." This is actually a quote from the English Lord Acton who also wrote in the very next line, "Great men are almost always bad men."  And years before he had written:  "The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern.  Every class is unfit to govern."

Acton might have been thinking about papal infallibility and Tory politicians, but I sense and agree with his assertion that all men in authority are vulnerable to seduction and equally corruptable.

And this opinion is not limited to prissy Englishmen.  Jefferson wrote:  "Experience hath shewn that even under the best forms (of government) those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny." 

We've had wealthy men and women in Congress, even some men and women who managed to marry well (McCain and Kerry).  Some are self-made; others are legacies from old money (Rockefeller, Kennedy).  A few years ago 51 Congresspersons and Senators owned net assets over $5 million.  More power to them.  Perhaps many of these men and women do have a measure of public service and social obligation in their hearts.  They are part of our country's social and financial elite.  If their neighbors, friends, and golfing buddies are of the same ilk, I have no complaints.  We, the people, elected them after all, even if his or her outstanding attributes were good haircuts, attractive spouses, and the ability to self-finance campaigns and never bother us about contributions.

If they have their own private jets, that's a privilege well-earned (or luckily inherited).

My caring concern is for the rest of the Congress and the Senate, where the decades old practice of borrowing a corporate or private jet has always been controversial and legal.  While bicycle liberals labled the whole exercise as corrupt, more rational voices pointed out how it was all about the Benjamins.  The law for years had insisted that Congressional junketeers were required to reimburse the corporations equivalent to First Class airfare, which might be 20% of the true cost of operating the flight.

In 2007, after two years of 'debate,' Bush the Younger crayoned his X on the "Honest Leadership and Open Government Act," which among other band-aids, restricts corporate-sponsored jet travel, requiring Members of Congress to pay fair market value when flying on these planes."  Fair enough.  A step in the right direction, though after the Supreme Court decision allowing almost unlimited corporate campaign donations, I assert we've now wandered drunkenly off in the wrong direction.

But it's not about the money.  It's about the life-style.

Corporate jets flying from private hangers, seminars at exclusive resorts, receptions with business elites, drinks after golf at private clubs with million dollar memberships...

Rich guys and gals are generally smart people, well-spoken, worldly, and they smell good:  they're great company; people you really want to hang out with.  And they know lots of other rich, successful, and fragrant people and are happy to make introductions.  After a few terms in office, it's easy to see yourself as one of them...as opposed to one of us, ie, the vast majority of their constituents.

Tailored suits, premium liquor, the best and newest golf clubs, long vacations on tropical islands, fine art, theatre tickets, a winter house on Florida's west coast.  These are all things any rational person might aspire to obtain or access, and a goal to fuel youthful ambition.  It's a version of the American Dream.  But for most of us, it's just that:  a sleepy-time dream or daytime fantasy.  Yet few of us are tempted constantly, not merely given chances to peek inside, but to touch it, feel it, and taste it.

On a Congressman's salary with maintaining two households, even the lobbyists and stooges who work for their rich new friends make more money than they do.

Many Congressmen and women know their roots and will continue to stay connected, returning to them someday.  But for others, even those who never surrender to the temptation to shave a bit off for themselves while serving, still come away, feeling themselves a part of an elite group of the rich and influential.  As they serve, there is a dramatic change in their peer group.  This is not a good thing.

The real world of their constituents includes economy seats, baggage fees, TSA pat-downs, yellowing public golf courses, Old Milwaukee by the case, short driving vacations during school breaks, seminars in high school auditorium, and pancake suppers at the Elks Club.  These are not the things Congresspersons have to put up with and complain to their new friends about.  They shouldn't forget how it was their life.

The Founding Fathers wanted our elected selectmen to be representative of their constituencies...not just representative for their constituents.  Thomas Jefferson admitted to the existance of an intellectual elite in the new nation and laid upon them a greater responsibility.  But I find nothing positive about the young country's monied elite.

"How'ya gonna keep'em down on the farm,
After they've seen Paree?
How'ya gonna keep'em
Away from Broadway,
Jazzin' aroun', and Paintin' the town?
How'ya gonna keep'em away from harm?
That's a mystery."

A song about our Doughboys returning home after WWI

Lyrics: Sam Lewis and Joe Young
Music: Walter Donaldson

  

If there is a single mantra for our elected leaders to follow, we can refer back to Jefferson:  "Do not bite at the bait of pleasure, till you know there is no hook beneath it." 

XXX