The shiny-object fallacy

We largely take it for granted that politicians will use their offices for their own political aggrandizement: Every public-works project from sea to shining sea is festooned with signage reminding voters that it was brought to them by this governor or that mayor or this stimulus package. There is no political peon too insignificant to merit a highway sign: “Welcome to Queens — Boro Pres. Helen M. Marshall.” (Surely that sign has been updated to reflect the installment of New York City’s new Sandinista government.) We now take it for granted that the State Department will act as a political organ for whatever administration is in charge, and that it will be staffed with campaign flunkies such as Harfenpsaki. That’s all perfectly legal, of course.

It is wrong, but wrong in a way that does not involve sexual adventures or shiny objects, and so it passes largely unremarked upon. There is no bright line between using the State Department as an instrument of self-serving political communication and using the IRS as an instrument of self-serving political retribution. The Hatch Act of 1939, passed in the wake of a scandal that involved the Democratic party’s using WPA employees as de facto campaign workers and swapping WPA jobs and patronage for political contributions, is supposed to criminalize that sort of thing. But in the broadest sense, using government resources to further individual political interests is impossible to police — instead, we are dependent upon the prudence and probity of our elected officials and the people they appoint, which is another way of saying we are, insofar as this matter is concerned, screwed.