Educators

by digby

Over the week-end I wrote about and linked to Greg Sargent’s piece about Larry Sabato’s personal relationship with former congressman Virgil Goode and how that’s a good example of conflict of interest that defines the ethos of the insider class of villagers. Sabato’s school had been a recipient of many earmarks from Goode over the years and is now struggling since Tom Periello ousted Goode in the last election.

Sabato responded to Sargent’s criticisms today saying that he would do a better job of disclosing his various ties, which is good.

But my criticism actually runs deeper than disclosure. Wouldn’t it also be useful if Sabato jumped into the earmark debate and educated the public about what they are, the good and the bad? He could have done that at numerous points over the past few years as “earmarks” became a proxy for government spending and corruption — and nearly turned the stimulus debate on its head, if you recall.

As a respected academic and political commentator he could have pointed out many times that government spending (earmarks) is often used for important and valuable institutions and projects like his that benefit the locals and the public at large. The phony construct of “objectivity” made it impossible for him to do that, and I would guess that he didn’t want to be seen as some sort of liberal, defending government largesse. But the problem is that unless people like him speak up, the notion that all government spending is wasteful becomes even more entrenched, even to the point where the spokesman for the Republican Party insists that the government spending money on volcano monitoring is some sort of joke.

Over all those years, instead of making a public case for spending that directly benefited his school, he relied on cronyism. And the result is that the new congressman, who might ideologically have been inclined to fund his institution as a matter of public good, had to run as a “reformer” on earmarks and wasteful spending and can’t justify one for Sabato’s institution. Sabato did it to himself.

The system is corrupt because people are not honest about what government does and what the public needs it to do. And the political class is so insular it doesn’t even know when it’s hurting itself.

.