As hobbies for old liberals go, there doesn’t seem to be much percentage in expending energies kvetching about what a sorry bunch of corporatist warmongering assholes the Democrats are. Sure, that case can be made, and there is nothing progressives seem to love more than finding evidence for that case, then making sure that they share their shocking findings with other progressives who might actually be tempted to waste their time pushing back against those even worse corporatist warmongers known as Republicans. For the progressives who love to spread a wet blanket on what little hope we have for keeping things from getting worse, there’s just no better or more rewarding hobby than bitching about Obama, or Hillary, until or unless another name arises that will first make them swoon, and then, inevitably, disappoint them.

Personally, I tend to spend more of my energies arguing with right wingers who think people like Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee, or even Jeb Bush would make good White House tenants. Like a lot of us old veterans of earlier political fights, I try to keep my eyes on the prize. And I try to keep some fairly obvious distinctions clear in my mind before I set off burning down the house I’m living in because I’ve failed to remember that living in a house with a leaky roof is still better than seeking shelter under a pile of charred two-by-fours.

For those and other reasons, I tend to be a bit more reserved in my criticism of Democrats, keeping my myriad complaints mostly to myself lest I lend aid and comfort to an enemy I find to be far more troubling than the political party that is, alas, the only game in town for people who would rather not have a bunch of ignorant yahoos, misogynists, corporate crooks, religious fundamentalists, and racists running things.

So I held my tongue when Nancy Pelosi announced at the dawn of the Obama administration’s first term that prosecution of Bush & Co. for war crimes was “off the table.” And I held my tongue when the bailout money allotted to patch up the economy trashed by greedy Wall Streeters mostly went to greedy Wall Streeters. Recognizing Obama’s obvious intelligence and grace under pressure, I deferred to his judgment when he kept guys like Tim Geithner and Ben Bernanke in their posts, and I mostly kept quiet about how disappointed I was when Eric Holder sat on his hands when it came to prosecuting some of the financial sector’s more egregious criminals whose pillaging had wiped out the equity in my house.

But now I see that Bernanke has shuttled over from his government post to cash in quite handsomely by taking a job with Citadel, a New York City hedge fund, at a rate of pay so high that neither Bernanke nor his new employer will say the number. Not to be outdone, Eric Holder, the former top law enforcement official in the land, has just sold his talents to JP Morgan Chase for $77 million a year, plus bonuses (that’s called “incentivizing, I think, since a mere $77 million base salary isn’t enough to really light a fire under a guy).

This is systemic corruption on a very grand scale, a pay-to-play scheme that ensures cynicism among those of us who would like to believe that at least one of the two political parties has the sort of principles that would at least recognize how unseemly it is for a man like Holder to take such a post at such a price.

There is something so profoundly wrong with this that even I can’t remain silent. The revolving door that took Dick Cheney from his post as Secretary of Defense to the top slot at Halliburton had been the most egregious example to that date of institutionalized corruption by politicians who no longer felt they even had to be subtle about ball’s out influence peddling. Forget that Boy Scout bullshit about serving your country; Cheney made plain just who was being served first in a system in which quid pro quo had become so entirely routine. Serve a couple of years in a government slot paying a paltry few hundred thousand a year, plus the kind of benefits working people never see, then resign in time to take one of the plum jobs offered in the financial sector or on K St. Become a “consultant” to outfits willing to pay big bucks to pick your brain for all the insider info you’d picked up about who might be malleable, and how to best get by those rules that applied to less well connected folks who can’t pay big consulting fees to handsomely retired civil “servants.” Who but a chump would do otherwise?

It’s a system that sucks big time, and one of the suckier things about it is how it fuels spirit-killing cynicism, contributes to the argument that we can’t fight city hall, convinces people that the game is wired, and that there is no essential difference between Republican crooks and Democratic Party crooks. It is corruption baked into the cake, a putrid pastry that feeds the “why bother?” zeitgeist underlying so much of what is wrong, and why so much of what is wrong can’t get fixed.

“Optics” is one of the tiresome clichés of our time, but the idea that it matters how things look remains important even when that idea gets eroded by lazy media overuse. Eric Holder’s decision not to prosecute any JP Morgan Chase malcreants while he was Attorney General may not have been influenced by the prospect of an obscene pay off when he left office, but that $77 million he’s pocketing not only doesn’t look good, it also stinks to high heaven. The harm done is incalculable, and it makes it damn near impossible for those of us who defend the Democratic Party to be very persuasive.

And that, alas, does at least as much as the Koch brothers do to make creeps, cretins, and crooks like Ted Cruz or Scott Walker look like viable presidential candidates. Nor does it help matters when the Democratic Party standard bearer is almost certain to be Hillary Clinton, a woman who has taken such enormous speaking fees from the same well-heeled people and corporations now wrapping Eric Holder up in a big bag of bucks as an expensive present to themselves. And though he didn’t come cheap, there’s no doubt that the people who Mr. Holder did the math, and they know he’ll pay off for them like a defective slot machine.

I’ll be voting for Hillary Clinton, most probably, because the alternatives are so bleak and unacceptable. And I’ll catch a ration of shit from “progressives” for supporting her because they will argue that guys like me are part of the problem even as they choose to sit out the election, or make the kind of symbolic protest vote that helped elect George W. Bush in 2000, with all the attendant miseries we’re still enduring.

But these sons of bitches like Holder sure aren’t making it easy for those of us who expect better from politicians who claim membership in a party that is the only voice for working people, the poor, the disenfranchised, and the under represented. Eric Holder should be ashamed of himself. Hillary, too. Whatever idealism might have initially led them to the Democratic Party appears to have been washed away in a flood of cash.

We, the people, need to demand that the door that leads from high government offices to automatic membership in the 1% be nailed shut. The bribes are now so huge that even people who may have started out with high ideals and principles can’t resist being corrupted.

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