Waiting for the Novel Excuses
How many ways will Sam Adam try and say all of this was planted by the FBI?
Rich linked to the video of the Troutman press conference both the other day and if you ignored his suggestion to go watch, go watch. And does his column on it this week.
The racial end of the difference between when this sort of thing happens to white officials and black officials isn’t hard to understand from a historical perspective. Whenever a new ethnic group gains power, a disproportionate share of officials of that ethnic group have hangers ons who get in trouble or the official herself gets in trouble. Justifying it in their minds because of past situations where they were shut out of power, the ethnic group rallies around the accused.
Troutman is the latest example, but the bizarre backing of William Jefferson is another recent example.
Substitute Irish for black and go back 50 years and the story is about the same–but eventually there must come a time when that sort of excusing the behavior ends. In many ways it is when minority politicians aren’t viewed all that differently from the major ethnic group and hence, we somewhat see that coming to pass with people like Obama and Ford. The first few cases don’t end the process, but they do signify a change.
None of this excuses the pattern because certainly, people like Jefferson and allegedly Troutman have ripped off the public. And the individual cases where there is a rallying around an obviously corrupt individual in such communities should lead to a greater push for sound leadership–though every ethnic/racial group goes through the process, eventually, it is only through electoral consequences that things change.
Then we can get down to politicians just being corrupt and having cronies backing them for personal gain instead of a misplaced sense of group identity.