A Stitch in Haste

"If an heir is equal to his money, it serves him; if not, it destroys him. But you look on and you cry that money corrupted him. Did it? Or did he corrupt his money?"
--"Francisco's Speech," Atlas Shrugged

A few days after I called "Shenanigans!" on John McCain in another context, George Will dropped the other shoe on this most miserable and decrepit of politicians:

Then ponder his implicit promise to "complete the job" of cleansing Washington of corruption, as McCain understands that. Unfortunately, although McCain is loquacious about corruption, he is too busy deploring it to define it. Mr. Straight Talk is rarely reticent about anything, but he is remarkably so about specifics: He says corruption is pandemic among incumbent politicians, yet he has never identified any corrupt fellow senator.

Anyway, he vows to "complete the job" of extirpating corruption, regardless of the cost to freedom of speech.

But of course we have understood for almost fifty years that money does not corrupt. And we have known for well over a century what does corrupt.

If John McCain is so worried about corruption in Washington, then the answer is not to restrict money, but to restrict power. If there were less power in government, if the politicians weren't activist legislators always on the prowl for something to do to curry favor and votes, then money would become ancillary if not irrelevant to the political process. Who would try to buy off a politician who not only doesn't do anything, but couldn't do anything even if he wanted to?

With a government of limited powers (which, remember, was America's ultimate "original intent" and which should always trump all subsequent legislative intents), there would be no need for campaign finance laws, and certainly no need to put the First Amendment in scare-quotes.

And there would be need for dangerous "maverick" politicians like John McCain cloaked in reformer garb offering to protect us from the Bill of Rights.