Corruption -- A Family Affair

          “Not a smidgen of corruption.”  These famous words uttered by President Obama in a Super Bowl half-time interview in answer to a question about the IRS have haunted the president as the facts have proven otherwise. 

          Is corruption endemic to politics?  How many mayors, congressmen, and governors have to go to jail before there is any doubt that power corrupts?

          Bill Clinton was perhaps the most disgraced president ever.  A serial abuser of women, he was impeached for perjury and obstruction of justice, although not a single Democrat voted for conviction.  One of his final acts as president was to pardon Marc Rich, a crook who was indicted on 65 criminal charges and fled to Switzerland to avoid prosecution in the biggest tax evasion case in history.  The pardon was given in gratitude for generous political contributions from Rich’s wife.  Yet, Democrats treat this morally corrupt man as an idol.

          Without any embarrassment whatsoever, NBC News gave Chelsea Clinton a $600,000 a year job as a journalism correspondent, without her having any journalism experience at all.  According to one sardonic source, she was “never NBC’s most prolific correspondent, nor its most widely praised.”  Chelsea quit the job to have a baby, but she won’t be hurting for money; her millionaire husband is Mark Mezvinsky, who just happens to be the son of Edward Mezvinsky, a former two-term congressman from Iowa who spent five years in jail after pleading guilty for cheating investors out of $10 million.  Corruption, it seems, is a family affair.
          And now, Vice-President Joe Biden must be wondering why the spotlight is suddenly on him.  A former Chief of Staff of his, Ron Klain, a political hack with no medical experience, has just been appointed to the newly minted position of Ebola Czar.  Meanwhile, Hunter Biden, the vice-president’s youngest son has been booted out of the Navy Reserves for cocaine use.  We can’t blame Joe for that, but there is a question about how Hunter Biden became a naval officer in the first place.  It seems he got two waivers.  One was a direct commission, which waives the usual requirements (Naval Academy, ROTC, or Officers’ Candidate School).  The other waived a youthful drug incident that would have barred the door to an ordinary mortal.  Would Hunter Biden have been commissioned if he had not been the son of the Vice-President?  Welcome to the family.