The only mortal sin in politics is hypocrisy. Conservatives, especially social conservatives, have been easy targets for their sexual peccadilloes (which the media contrast with their public advocacy of family values): think Ted Haggard or Larry Craig. Liberals tend to get hoisted on financial hypocrisy (although Eliot Spitzer and James McGreevey are exception). To wit: John Edwards’s $400 haircuts, hedge fund employment, and high-paying speeches on poverty.
Barack Obama is coming close to that latter line. He identifies himself as the “throw the lobbyists out” champion and “money corrupts politics” truth-teller. But wait! His “parallel public financing system” is populated by 79 “bundlers,” you say? Can’t be. Plus the media has finally woken up to the fact that Obama’s “I don’t take corporate money” is a ruse for the rubes and that millions of dollars from supposedly nefarious sources (drug and oil companies and banks) are underwriting the Obama-mania road show. (Feeling the heat, Obama is now dialing back on his suggestion that he has definitively decided to opt out of the real public campaign finance system.)
There is, of course, a bit of Captain Renault-style incredulity in the reporting. But it was Obama who elevated himself to mythical levels of political purity. That his image would eventually collide with reality was only a matter of time. The question now is whether it survives intact.
