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• Tuesday, December 2, 2008 09:15 AM

  The last decade?

  This is vintage Washington. This is the filthy, venal sleaze on which both political parties feed. It's what fuels how the Beltway operates. It's the leading cause of why it functions as a corrupt, dysfunctional, bloated, incestuous royal court. That's what Washington is. [snip] The Washington establishment has ruined everything it's touched over the last decade.

  Glenn, an excellent post. I agree with all of your points, but your use of the word "decade" confuses me. Are you implying that Washington only became a sleazy den of corruption in 1998? What about the Savings and Loan scandals and Iran-Contra in the 1980s, Vietnam and Watergate in the 1970s, decades of McCarthyism and J. Edgar Hoover abuses before that, American colonial wars in the Philippines, etc, etc, ad nauseum?

  Perhaps you are implying that the Clinton decade was a refreshing island of propriety for DC, but that isn't consistent with your other comments about the Rich pardon (and your obvious concern about Hillary Clinton returning to the White House). I would think it would be more accurate to admit that Washington DC has, by any meaningful standard, ALWAYS been a den of corruption, abuse, and legal impunity. That would put people's expectations of "change" from Obama in a more realistic light.

  I suspect you meant to signify that the Bush abuses were quantitatively and qualitatively worse than any that immediately preceded them. On habeas corpus and human rights, that may be true (though Democratic protesters in Daley's Chicago, Civil Rights marchers in 1950s Mississippi, and Japanese-American WWII interns may argue that point). But in the context of power-brokering and insider-influence (presumably the topic of your post), it isn't obvious to me that the W. Bush years have been worse than the Reagan, Clinton, or Nixon years. Via lobbyists, the mechanisms of influence peddling have changed, but has it actually increased or decreased? Frankly, was there ever an authentic spirit of selfless, disinterested governance in Washington, at least in the modern era?

  I wonder if there was something specific you had in mind when you reserved the brunt of your anger for DC's last decade.

  —saburai Read saburai's other letters
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