Corruption is uniquely reprehensible in a democracy because it violates the system's first principle, which we all learned back in the sunshiny days of elementary school: that the government exist to serve the public, not particular companies or individuals or even elected officials.

Republicans run the machine when it's their turn, and then hand the wheel over to Democrats when the public has had enough.

I was in a bad mood when I wrote that.

The revival of the Right is as extraordinary as it would be if the public had demanded dozens of new nuclear plants in the days after the Three Mile Island disaster; if we had reacted to Watergate by making Richard Nixon a national hero.

Corruption is uniquely reprehensible in a democracy because it violates the system's first principle, which we all learned back in the sunshiny days of elementary school: that the government exist to serve the public, not particular companies or individuals or even elected officials.

For-profit higher education is today a booming industry, feeding on the student loans handed out to the desperate.

Governing was always difficult for conservatives, but as they return to the opposition, they are rediscovering their skill at blame evasion.