Integrity and Lack Thereof

Over the past twenty years the government that exists to serve the people has been transformed into a largely self-serving and socially degenerative corporate thug. There is no cynicism in any of this. The Bush administration admittedly has politicized the appointment of the judicial branch of government from blind, objective administrators of justice to partisan, incompetent hacks.

But, as in all of life, there remain reminders and artifacts of a more golden age when concepts such as integrity mattered.

Last Friday, a number of Catholics were arrested because they attempted to perform a citizen's arrest on Karl Rove. The police, empowered to uphold the law refused to recognize the legitimacy of these individual's action.

The Catholics were brought before Polk County Fifth Judicial District Associate Judge William Price.

[Mona] Shaw was the first called before Polk County Fifth Judicial District Associate Judge William Price.

After entering her plea, the judge asked Shaw, “Mamn, what were you doing at the Wakonda Country Club?”

“I was attempting to make a citizen’s arrest of Karl Rove, your honor,” Shaw answered.

“Well,” the judge looked up and said, “it’s about time.”

House Republican, Rep. Scott Muschany co-sponsor of the 2007 sex education bill that "called for public school course materials and instruction on sexuality and sexually transmitted diseases to be presented to students in a way that portrays the personal, physical, emotional, financial, and psychological risks and consequences of sexual activity and is in accordance with the federal abstinence education law." was indicted today in connection with a reported sexual assault of a 14-year-old girl on May 17, the day after this year’s Legislative session ended.

The federal abstinence education law is yet another well documented program of failure that the Bush administration loves to funnel tax payer money into. This story is a reminder of the depravity and sleaze that these wholesome sounding laws sugarcoat.

The wholesale absence of integrity in the federal government should make every citizen uneasy because of the deleterious effect this tsunami of slime is having on our kids, our sense of justice and what little is left of our national morality. Judges like William Price are precious reminders that all is not foul but the political stench from Washington still makes our eyes water uncontrollably.