Joe Bruno: A Reaction

I have two responses to the conviction of Joe Bruno on two counts for petty corruption. First, if Joe Bruno is guilty they all are (or rather since Joe Bruno is guilty they all are). And second, considering what this generation of state legislators have done to the common future of the state and anyone who will be living in it, this is the equivalent of convicting Al Capone for tax evasion rather than murder. While petty corruption is annoying, there is a limit to the extent it is damaging. Far more damage has been done by deals and non-decisions for which no one has been put on trial. I never cared about the helicopter rides, etc. The problem was and is the transfer of resources from everyone in the future (now the present) to provide unearned privileges to those manipulating the system in the present (now the past), all without any public accounting or debate, all hidden, all lied about.

Ironically, the strategy of going after public officials for their petty venalities rather than their broader unprincipled actions was the that of former Governor Eliot Spitzer, who turned out to have some petty venalities of his own. So I guess Spitzer lives.

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