When Corruption Was King

Oh, that would be now.

"The scale of the scandals now coming to light, of which the Abramoff affair is just a part, dwarfs anything in living memory."
— From "A False Balance" by Paul Krugman, January 30

• Squandered billions in Iraq, where, as post-Katrina, White House-affiliated contractors have been handed the key to the lock box.
• Tom DeLay, Bob Ney, and, yet to come to a full boil, Dennis Hastert, who Sibel Edmonds alleges has taken fistfuls of money from the Turkish government to vote against censuring Turkey for the Armenian genocide early in the twentieth century.
• And of course, the one name that will forever symbolize corruption in America — Jack Abramoff. Boss Tweed, who held that distinction, can rest in peace now.

The US has endured other corruption scandals from the Grant administration — perhaps Bush & Co.'s model — to Watergate. But this administration's transgressions make the Teapot Dome Scandal look like, well, a tempest in a teapot.