Institutions Crack

            We Americans are blessed. We live in the most prosperous and most powerful country in the world. For our entire short history people have wanted to come here to enjoy the limitless opportunities offered by our liberty, our free-market capitalism, and our system of government. Ours is the longest-surviving democracy in the history of the world, a democracy based on a Constitution that has guaranteed freedoms enjoyed nowhere else.

            But our base is cracking because of a loss of faith in our institutions. Our national defense is crumbling, our no-growth economy is mired in debt, our cities are festering with drugs and violence, while our law-enforcement community is disrespected my millionaire football players and protests based on lies. Moreover, we have a political system corrupted by venal politicians abetted by a biased media and led by candidates with unheard-of negative ratings. Even the FBI, an institution deemed incorruptible from the days of Elliot Ness, has fallen prey to political ambition.

            There was a time when the FBI could not be bribed and could not be dictated to from above. It was truly untouchable. Now that aura is gone. It was blown away by a scandalous dereliction of duty in the Hillary Clinton investigation. We had been led to believe that Director James Comey was a straight-up guy who would not be influenced by politics, who would conduct a fair and impartial investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails. Now it appears that he intentionally let her off the hook. Whether it was at the direction of President Obama who wanted to protect his ideological successor or whether Comey wanted simply to advance his career, we likely will never know. In the face of overwhelming evidence that Hillary Clinton committed multiple felonies (destruction of evidence, obstruction of justice, perjury), Comey caved. He recommended that no charges be brought, thereby relieving compromised Attorney General Loretta Lynch from making that decision. This wasn’t justice: it was pure politics.

            Elliot Ness must be turning in his grave.