Is There a High Road?

No doubt the completely legal firing of government attorneys will keep the beltway crowd all a twitter for the next several weeks. And why wouldn't it? Washington and those who write about it are no more sophisticated than those who worship the other cult of celebrity that festers out on the west coast. Burying Anna Nicole is equal in significance to firing government workers who serve at the pleasure of the administration. And both feed the same base impulse for gossip and titillation that fills empty lives with meaning.

That people make the insignificant significant is not the main problem here. The attitude of political gossip hounds who look down their noses at the tabloids is even more repugnant for its blatant hypocrisy. Washington's sophisticated conceit is such a sham and such a shame. I believe the business of the people should be conducted in a way that elevates it above the common. The emphasis on the fact that we are all equally fallible which was paraded about most recently in the defense of Bill Clinton has taken the pressure off of leadership. And that notion (obviously not invented for the Clinton scandals) serves to lower the entire political process from honorable public service to wretched self service.

Don't get me wrong. I don't believe there was ever a golden age of high minded political behavior, although I'd love to be proved wrong there. However, that does not mean that we shouldn't be striving for it or measuring our political system against it in an effort to elevate all those involved. From the belief that our elected leaders should not be held to a higher standard than the rest of us flows the ugly tabloid sensationalism that one expects to see in the ugly little world of celebrity. No one expects a movie star to behave in an honorable fashion, and so they don't. It's time we expect more from our political culture and hold it accountable when it falls short.