Scandals and government have been inseparable since…well, since the very first scandal disgraced somebody in the very first government.  They’ve involved abuse of power by means of manipulative clandestine chicanery or blatant, planned or passionate violence.  Lying, cheating, misrepresentation and my personal favorites involving comments made on forgotten open microphones, have all been recurring and popular.  Treasonous behavior is certainly among the most serious, but it is surprisingly rare, (or more carefully concealed), in the vast history of political disgrace.  Sex…well, sex trumps them all.  The inappropriate dalliance or, of late, the misguided tweet has ended careers, reversed policy and toppled empires.

Humans love to be outraged by other humans’ bad behavior.  As evidenced this week, the multiple scandals feeding the frenzy of the media have left little space for anything else.  They have puffed wind into the sails of dead-in-the-water legislators who have seized this golden opportunity to pretend to be doing something important.  Just what we all need, right?…distraction from the myriad of meaty issues at hand.  History tells us how this current batch will play out.  Some insignificant jobs will be lost, (probably not so insignificant to the losees, but you know what I mean), members of oversight committees will yell and hrrrumph and tsk, lots of people will lie, innocent people will be detrimentally effected, each scandal will be given a clever name and then we’ll move along, fundamentally, exactly as we were before.  Even the most compelling debacles of our recent history have been almost comical in their resolution:

• Nixon’s over-reaching, maniacal abuse of power may have led to his disgraceful resignation, but he was ultimately presidentially pardoned and lived out his life as a respected world diplomat.

• Abscam…nada.

• Bill:Blowjob:Clinton Foundation.

• Bush:WMD:Iraq:Economy:Libary.

In the throes of the ever-mounting turmoil over Benghazi, IRS and AP, (clever names still pending), I guess governing will have to be put on hold, except maybe for voting to repeal everything that has passed as a result of the scandalous behavior of the current administration.  The legislative pause can be indicated by one of those red,  scrolly things with lots of exclamation points at the bottom of the C-SPAN screen.  When the crises are over, we can return to normal.  The ‘All Clear’ will be indicated by the shit-eating grin fading from Michele Bachmann’s face.

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My often-mentioned nephew, Alex Hale, sang his new single, “Walk A Mile” at the start of the Autism Speaks Walk at Soldier Field yesterday as over 15,000 participants cheered. You can hear his song at the link below.

http://managramusic.com/site/2013/05/17/walk-a-mile/