Corruption and American Politics By Michael A. Genovese and Vict ...

revealed that he was trying to “sell” the Illinois Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama.

President Richard M. Nixon, thirty-seventh president of the United States, was coaxed into resigning after it was revealed he had engaged in a criminal conspiracy to obstruct justice.

President Ronald W. Reagan faced the possibility of impeachment when it was revealed that not only was he illegally selling arms to a terrorist nation, but that he was using profits from those arms sales to illegally fund a revolutionary force in Nicaragua that was trying to violently overthrow the government.

President William Jefferson Clinton, having been caught engaging in improper sexual relations with a twenty-one-year-old White House intern, then lying about it under oath, was impeached by the House of Representatives.

From the days of Athenian democracy to the back rooms of Chicago politics today, corruption has plagued all political systems for all time. It is ubiquitous, vexing, and, at times, threatens the very fabric of society. No culture, no system of government, no code of ethics has been able to eliminate political corruption; I can confidently say none can and none will.

Corruption. It is, as the framers of the U.S. Constitution believed, embedded in human nature. As such, the framers cautioned that teaching “virtue” (Plato's Philosopher King who would know justice and act justly) was an insufficient safeguard when human temptation confronted the intoxicating lure of resources. As author Oscar Wilde said, “I can resist anything except temptation.” Or as Mae West quipped, “I generally avoid temptation, unless I can't resist it.”

While the United States generally ranks comparatively low in measures of political corruption (Transparency International rates the United States as the 18th “least” corrupt nation in the world, with Denmark at number 1, New Zealand, 2nd, and Sweden 3rd; the U.K. is at 16; France, 23; Spain, 28; Israel, 33; South Korea, 40; Italy, 55; Cuba, 65; and Somalia is last at 180¹), it too continues to confront its sting.

It is important, when discussing corruption, to make several useful distinctions. First, all scandals do not necessarily count as political