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It's always a shame and a disgrace when any public servant violates the public trust. By granting authority to governmental authorities - whether they be policemen, Senators, or clerks at the DMV - we grant them the privilege of wielding the Majesty of the Law in a way that private citizens and private businesses simply cannot.
Precisely because the power of government is so vastly greater than even the largest private business, the penalty for abuse of office should be vastly greater too, no matter what other good the offender may have done.
The BBC brings us sad news of such an event:
Former New York City police chief Bernard Kerik, hailed as a hero after the 9/11 attacks, has been sentenced to four years in jail. Kerik pleaded guilty in November to eight charges, including lying to the White House and tax evasion.
Lying to the White House hardly seems a crime seeing as the White House lies to us every day, but tax evasion and similar corruption is another matter.
Kerik admitted accepting a $250,000 payback in the form of house renovations from a company to which he gave a city contract. The company installed marble bathrooms, a jacuzzi and a new kitchen in Kerik's apartment in the upmarket New York suburb of Riverdale. He also admitted tax crimes including failing to report more than $500,000 in taxable income between 1999 and 2004.
Mr Kerik had been hailed as a national hero following the 9/11 terror attacks...
Mr. Kerik was a national hero, as was his mentor Mayor Guiliani. Alas, heroism can go to your head, and even the bravest of heroes may not be stainless elsewhere in their lives, as a court of law has found to be the case with Mr. Kerik. His brave deeds can't make up for his corruption and theft; as distressing as it is to incarcerate a hero, prison is the right and proper place for him.
Why, then, do we not see prison sentences for other notables who have stolen more, and accomplished less? Mr. Kerik's skillful leadership of the New York City police force led to stunning drops in crime; statistically speaking, you could say that his policing saved the lives of hundreds if not thousands of New Yorkers.
Yet he's behind bars. What can "Turbo-Tax Timmy" Geithner say in his own defense that's greater than Kerik? How about Rep. Charlie Rangel and his tax-evading offshore villa? At least Tom Daschle lost the chance for a cabinet seat over his unpaid taxes, but he's still breathing the free air. We could go on for days in the same vein.
What do the not-yet-convicted have in common? They are Democrats. The inability of the mainstream press to say a bad word about Democratic corruption is legendary - if the crime is so egregious that it has to be reported, the articles have a noted tendency to omit the crook's party affiliation and hide on the back page. Whereas, a criminal Republican gets awarded a front-page banner headline to the effect of "Republican Scumbag Arrested for Usual Republican Corruption: Will Be Convicted and Imprisoned with Other Republicans!!!"
Let's face it: There are Republican scumbags - Illinois prisons are full of them, and that's where they belong. Mr. Kerik apparently is another one, and his penalty is the same.
Why, though, can't we treat Democrat scumbags the same way? It shouldn't matter what your party affiliation is if you're a crook. Let's lock them all up evenhandedly.
That might make things easier on Republicans, or perhaps not, by getting rid of a great campaign issue. But it doesn't matter: it would be good for the country, and if we can't agree on anything else, surely we should be able to agree that we don't want to be ruled by crooks?
Now if we could just get Mr. Obama to stop appointing them!