It’s one thing for media pun­dits to stand tall and proud and sup­port Hillary Clin­ton as the can­di­date best suit­ed to be pres­i­dent. It’s anoth­er for jour­nal­ists to sup­pli­cate them­selves before the pre­sump­tive occu­pant of the world’s most pow­er­ful office in the hope that one day they might join Sid­ney Blu­men­thal (In These Times’ for­mer Boston cor­re­spon­dent) as a palace favorite.

T﻿he issue here is not whether we can find a smoking gun establishing a quid pro quo exchange. Principled public officials avoid the mere “appearance of impropriety” lest they expose themselves to reasonable inferences of corruption.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, as we head to Elec­tion Day, the ranks of the aspir­ing courtier press are full to burst­ing. Take the alle­ga­tion that the van­i­ty char­i­ty of America’s most promi­nent polit­i­cal fam­i­ly solicit­ed mon­ey from the world’s rich and pow­er­ful, who in turn asked favors from that fam­i­ly. Here’s how three media mavens spun it:

Matthew Ygle­sias of Vox: ​ “ There has been a lot of dis­cus­sion around poten­tial con­flicts of inter­est relat­ed to the Clin­ton Foun­da­tion, so the absence of any clear evi­dence of actu­al mis­con­duct is a use­ful con­tri­bu­tion to our understanding.”

​ There has been a lot of dis­cus­sion around poten­tial con­flicts of inter­est relat­ed to the Clin­ton Foun­da­tion, so the absence of any clear evi­dence of actu­al mis­con­duct is a use­ful con­tri­bu­tion to our understanding.” Ruth Mar­cus of the Wash­ing­ton Post: ​ “ The nat­ur­al instinct of the smart politi­cian — an instinct and activ­i­ty not unique to Clin­ton — is to accom­mo­date donors to the extent permissible.”

​ The nat­ur­al instinct of the smart politi­cian — an instinct and activ­i­ty not unique to Clin­ton — is to accom­mo­date donors to the extent permissible.” Kevin Drum of Moth­er Jones: ​ “ It’s the kind of thing that hap­pens all the time. … So tell me again what the issue is here?”

T﻿he issue here is not whether we can find a smok­ing gun estab­lish­ing a quid pro quo exchange. Smart oper­a­tors (like Gulf State auto­crats and their con­tacts in the State Depart­ment) don’t pro­duce paper trails of receipts or mem­o­ran­da con­firm­ing trans­ac­tion­al cor­rup­tion. For this rea­son, prin­ci­pled pub­lic offi­cials avoid the mere ​“appear­ance of impro­pri­ety” lest they expose them­selves to rea­son­able infer­ences of cor­rup­tion. This is a tenet that any judge who has recused her­self from a case under­stands — and with which any grad­u­ate of Yale Law School is familiar.

What clear-eyed observ­er would deny that the U.S. fail­ure to strong­ly con­demn Bahrain’s oppres­sion of its Shia major­i­ty might some­how be relat­ed to the warm rap­port between the Bahrain­ian monar­chy and Amer­i­can elites — ties nur­tured through many rela­tion­ships, includ­ing, per­haps, through Crown Prince Salman’s con­tri­bu­tions to the Clin­ton Glob­al Initiative?

It’s an econ­o­my of pow­er that is cor­rupt … and that cor­rupts. But sys­tems can be changed. When In These Times was found­ed 40 years ago, we pledged to con­front the ​“polit­i­cal taboo” of cor­po­rate capitalism.

In These Times’ final edi­to­r­i­al of 1976, in the spir­it of the Bicen­ten­ni­al, turned to John Adams, our 2nd pres­i­dent, who warned that con­cen­trat­ed wealth would trans­form the repub­lic into an oli­garchy. We wrote:

Adams also held that the leg­isla­tive branch ​“should be in minia­ture an exact por­trait of the peo­ple at large. It should think, feel, rea­son and act like them.” … Cor­po­rate pow­er is accus­tomed to vir­tu­al monop­oly in the mar­ket and over gov­ern­ment. It is time to break up the cor­po­rate monop­oly, not by anti-trust suits, but by begin­ning to retrieve the leg­isla­tive branch to the peo­ple and mak­ing it the cham­pi­on of the sov­er­eign­ty of the peo­ple and their hap­pi­ness, against the usurpa­tions of oli­garchic cor­po­rate power.

If our 45th pres­i­dent-to-be and her media courtiers don’t under­stand this, it’s our job to make them.