Are Any of Us Surprised?

Lord Acton wrote back in 1887, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men." He was right. We can always count on our public officials to serve up some old-fashioned corruption like money schemes and the like. Of course we have been treated to more news featuring corruption of the flesh lately so it is nice to see when public officials get arrested for graft. You don't get arrested for adultery, you just get sanctioned or shamed into resigning. Lately, shame has not been working because the last set of adulterers are still in office. Ah, what would we do without our wayward politicians? Oh, here's a new story:

"A two-year corruption and international money-laundering investigation stretching from the Jersey Shore to Brooklyn to Israel and Switzerland culminated in charges against 44 people on Thursday, including three New Jersey mayors, two state assemblymen and five rabbis, the authorities said." (New York Times, July 23, 2009)

Are any of us surprised? Though, it is interesting to note that this sweep includes religious leaders as well. They usually go down for the flesh kind.

Poor Jersey, it will never live down its stereotype of corruption. All I can say to that is, FBI come on over and do some corruption clean-up in New York, especially out here on Long Island. For as we in the Northeast know, the older the state, the deeper the corruption gets. That's for sure.