{"id":91,"date":"2003-06-16T11:07:36","date_gmt":"2003-06-16T16:07:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/?p=91"},"modified":"2003-06-16T11:07:36","modified_gmt":"2003-06-16T16:07:36","slug":"matters_of_degr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/06\/16\/matters_of_degr.html","title":{"rendered":"Matters of Degree"},"content":{"rendered":"

Scott mentions in a comment to a recent post <\/a>that “There has never, ever been a more politicizing administration than this one, not to mention a more corrupt one.”<\/i><\/p>\n

I’m not sure I understand what “politicizing” means — using current events for political advantage, I suppose. That’s endemic to politics as a whole, and I’m not sure Dubya’s administration has been egregiously worse than any other pre-\/during\/post-war administration, not to mention ones which followed up major economic downturns.<\/p>\n

But the “corrupt” charge is an interesting one. <\/p>\n

The classic Old School “most corrupt adminstration” was that of Warren G. Harding, of the Teapot Dome scandal<\/a>. Of course, Harding himself may have just been stupid<\/a>, rather than corrupt, no matter how corrupt his administration was. And corrupt it was — the first cabinet officer ever sent to jail, various resignations, and all sorts of financial skullduggery by an administration made up of friends and cronies — two of whom committed suicide rather than be prosecuted. Harding himself wasn’t seen as involved in the scandals, just responsible for them. Though, of course, there were allegations of personal misconduct of various sorts<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Turning to more contemporary administrations …<\/p>\n

Kennedy got into office, many believe, based on known “counting the graveyard vote” in Illinois, not to mention prevaricating on the “missile gap.” We’ve learned more and more over the years about his personal sex habits, including many that may have laid him open to blackmail by the Mob. We’ve also learned he was far sicker and impaired in his leadership than was revealed at the time — a major lie, some say, that significantly tarnishes the gilt of Camelot. His covert escalation of US involvement in Viet Nam certainly should qualify him for some corruption charges as well.<\/p>\n

Lyndon Johnson was of the old tradition of rough-and-tumble politics, and people point to any number of dubious electoral acts <\/a>in his pre-presidential years. It was the under Johnson that the Viet Nam involvement metasticized, triggered by the extremely dubious Gulf of Tonkin incident. While I’m sure some folks think that Tonkin pales in the face of the manipulations of the Bush adminstration regarding Iraq, fact is it seems (with the perspective of history) a much more bald-faced lie <\/a>that directly took us into war. That leaves aside his complicity <\/a>in the act <\/a>that brought him to the presidency.<\/p>\n

Many folks, of course, point to Nixon, whose abuses of national law enforcement and intelligence agencies to personal political purposes, and (more significantly) his coverup of same, forced him to resign before being impeached. He had a VP who was nailed for taking bribes, and any number of personal cronies (and an attorney general) who did time. He’s arguably guilty of war crimes (by the same logic as has Kissinger painted that way<\/p>\n

Ford was relatively benign as far as corruption goes — once you get past that major Pardoning Nixon thang. Was this a truly “unelected” president whose presidency was solely <\/i>due to a dirty deal? And, of course, as a member of the Warren Commission, he, too, gets implicated in the JFK assassination dirtiness.<\/p>\n

Carter lusted in his heart. Clearly he thought himself, in those days, as sinful a man as the next.<\/p>\n

Reagan is certainly held in low esteem in many hearts <\/a>regarding corruption: Iran-Contra<\/a>, the October Surprise, the S&L collapse, invasions of Grenada and Panama … with over 400 members of the administration indicted or investigated, and 31 convictions, you can find plenty of people calling it the most corrupt administration ever.<\/p>\n

Bush Senior came in tarred by the Reagan scandals — there were any number of folks who thought Ronnie was merely the affable dupe, and GHWB was the Richelieu behind Iran-Contra<\/a>. You can find any number of folks who think Bush Senior was the devil incarnate<\/a>, before and after becoming president. Those who believe the “CIA introduced crack cocaine to the ghettos” have their claim <\/a>in there, too, Of course, he was behind the JFK assassination<\/a>, too. Most of this stuff happened before GHWB’s admininistration — which only leaves open the question of how much more evil and corrupt that administration itself was.<\/p>\n

Clinton? Though certainly there are plenty of rumors about other presidents <\/a>on the list regarding extramarital affairs but — well, there are plenty of other corruption mud folks tossed his direction — ’nuff <\/a>said<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Regarding Dubya …<\/p>\n

Well, as a history major, I was always warned against making significant historical judgments any time sooner than fifty years after an event. I suspect there is always an impulse to consider what’s going on now the Worst, The worst president, the worst blizzard, the worst ecomic downturn, the worst drought, the worst whatever. That rat-bastard in the White House? He’s the most corrupt, politicizing, lying, rat-bastard son-of-a-bitch who ever defiled the Lincoln Bedroom — until the next one I don’t like.<\/p>\n

Calling Dubya’s administration the most corrupt ever seems both wildly premature and, given some of the contrasts, more than a bit of an exagerration. Not by any means that he’s shown himself to be an angel, a hero, or a paragon. But all hyperbole does is muddy the waters, and masks issues with some big over-arching label that can then be summarily dismissed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Scott mentions in a comment to a recent post that “There has never, ever been a more politicizing administration than this one, not to mention a more corrupt one.” I’m…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-91","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-law"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3800,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/03\/27\/discussions.html","url_meta":{"origin":91,"position":0},"title":"Discussions","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 27-Mar-03 8:36am","format":false,"excerpt":"In Andre Norton's classic Witch World series, eons ago there was a terrible war of sorcery in the lands to the east. They were blasted and made desolate, and the...","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging & Internet"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging & Internet","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":24888,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2011\/12\/27\/the-more-things-change-in-politics-the-more-they-stay-the-same.html","url_meta":{"origin":91,"position":1},"title":"The more things change in politics, the more they stay the same","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 27-Dec-11 8:28am","format":false,"excerpt":"Teddy below could be speaking of modern-day Washington politics (esp. since there are some there who would like to see the political clock turned back to before Roosevelt's Progressive Era). \"Political parties exist to secure responsible government and to execute the will of the people. From these great tasks both\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":41076,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/02\/11\/the-legal-let-alone-moral-complexities-of-extrajudicial-killings.html","url_meta":{"origin":91,"position":2},"title":"The legal (let alone moral) complexities of extrajudicial killings","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 11-Feb-14 10:58am","format":false,"excerpt":"Interesting article, and even more interesting comment section.I have no problem saying that extrajudicial killing by the government is wrong (let's leave aside the diplomatic\/geopolitical aspects of operating in another country when they've told us not to), except against a combatant in time of war, at which time the \"due\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":130967,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/07\/02\/regarding-the-singular-they-vs-the-singular-you.html","url_meta":{"origin":91,"position":3},"title":"Regarding the singular "they" vs the singular "you"","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 2-Jul-16 1:07pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Language is always in flux, sometimes slowly, sometimes rapidly. Some changes are aesthetically pleasing, others grate on the nerves -- but both reactions are personal ones, and the result is variation over time and social groups and a delicate interplay of formal and informal language evolving over time. There is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2050,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/03\/20\/gilts_2.html","url_meta":{"origin":91,"position":4},"title":"GILTS","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 20-Mar-02 2:51pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I am informed, by my local PC tech support guys, that it is a bad thing for my notebook to boot up with a message that \"\\system\\hal.dll is corrupt...","rel":"","context":"In "Hi-Tech"","block_context":{"text":"Hi-Tech","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/hi-tech"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":128315,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/10\/14\/its-not-about-abortion-its-about-sex.html","url_meta":{"origin":91,"position":5},"title":"It's not about Abortion, it's about SEX!","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 14-Oct-15 9:20am","format":false,"excerpt":"Or that's what Monica Miller of Citizens for a Pro-Life Society says is the reason Planned Parenthood must be defunded ASAP:\"Planned Parenthood from the top to the bottom is a corrupt organization, corrupt in its view of the sanctity of human life and corrupt in its view of human sexuality.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/devil-15-c5B15D.gifimgmax%3D660.gif?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}