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Commentary With no warning, in the opening paragraph of Richard Cohen’s recent column
("What Price Service?"), there it was, in black in white:
"Charles Lewis, drop dead." Not that I haven’t heard such sentiments
before, sometimes in much coarser language. It is an occupational hazard as the
head of the Center for Public Integrity. Given the critical, independent nature
of our work, we certainly recognize that we won’t ever win any popularity
contests in Washington. Nonetheless, the extent of Cohen’s caffeinated conniption was quite
surprising. His calumnious column mentioned my organization and me by name no
fewer than 10 times, fortunately with the correct spelling, with such endearing
prose as "the scowling, judgmental face of Charles Lewis,"
"Charles Lewis and his gang of virgins," "So shut up, Charles
Lewis" and so on. By the way, since 1990 our award-winning "gang of
virgins" has been very busy, producing 100-plus books, studies and online
investigative reports about political influence, corruption and ethics-related
issues, roughly 2 million words that Cohen, whom I’ve never met, probably has
never read. The basis for his perturbation was a comment I made in a New York Times
article that annoyed him about how some extremely wealthy Bush Cabinet officials
divesting some of their stocks because of potential conflict of interest issues
are losing money in a down stock market. I said in the Times,
"Pardon me if I don’t get out a handkerchief. It is a great honor and
privilege to serve at the highest levels of government, and it is a free
country. These guys don’t have to do it." What followed was a peculiar
paean by Cohen to the financial sacrifice and patriotism of these American
businessmen-turned-Cabinet officers "uncharacteristic" for their
"nearly fatal . . . lack of greed." So much for the famous
journalistic adage about afflicting the comfortable and comforting the
afflicted. By taking steps to avoid conflicts of interest, these new officials have done
what officials in previous administrations did, also known as "the right
thing," which is certainly commendable. There is, of course, a
centuries-old tradition of successful business leaders becoming part of local,
state and federal government, and then returning from whence they came. Such
expertise and perspective in public service has unquestionably benefited the
nation over the years. At the same time, no one – including Cohen –
questions the need for conflict-of-interest laws and regulations to avoid the
reality and the perception of profiteering from public service. Let’s also not
forget that business executives, lawyers and other educated professionals
serving in government at substantial financial sacrifice often do so in part
because they will become more knowledgeable, known and valuable following their
public service. After his stint as defense secretary, Richard Cheney personally became a very
wealthy man for the first time as the CEO of Halliburton, doubling that company’s
campaign contributions, lobbying expenditures and federal government contracts
during his tenure there. Today, former secretary of state James Baker and former
CIA director Frank Carlucci, among others, each have partnerships now reportedly
worth at least $180 million in the Carlyle Group, an equity firm that also
happens to be the 11th largest defense contractor. According to The
New York Times, former president George Bush is currently an investor with
Carlyle while his son initiates a new, multibillion-dollar defense buildup
replete with lucrative new contracts. On the Democratic side, a number of former
aides to former senator and vice president Al Gore, such as Peter Knight, Roy
Neel, Greg Simon and others, all became wealthy lobbyists because of their
perceived proximity to power. Which brings me to the single most objectionable part of Cohen’s ode to
officialdom: "Washington is so clean it’s boring. The rogues are gone,
and politics has become a sort of priesthood." Yes, the record $3 billion
raised and spent by politicians and parties in last year’s federal elections,
collected from the wealthiest 4 percent of the American people with business
before the government, was a pristine, patriotic exercise, bless their hearts.
And the 20,000 Washington lobbyists who helped them collect it from their
corporate clients were motivated solely by altruism, and they also salute the
American flag every morning. The "priesthood" of politics would see the reversal of a campaign
pledge by President George W. Bush to seek reductions in carbon dioxide
emissions as completely unrelated to intensive lobbying and $3.5 million in
campaign contributions from the coal industry to his campaign and the Republican
Party. This "see-no-evil, hear-no-evil" approach to politics and
journalism would ignore the $5.8 million in campaign contributions to Bush and
his party from the mining industry (86 percent of total industry money in 2000
went to Republicans) as a salient factor in the Bush administration’s recent
repeal of stricter, internationally accepted standards for arsenic in drinking
water. And the fact that the president and both political parties received $30
million from the bank-and-credit-card industry has nothing to do with the
existence today of a new bankruptcy law. No one disputes that there are thousands of dedicated public servants who
work in government at all levels. But in Washington today, the political
decision-making process is neither clean nor boring, but a corrupt, mercenary
culture, countenanced by nearly all, including the occasional columnist,
desperately seeking access to the highest reaches of that culture.
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