Claiming Honor

Everybody's having so much fun with the Foley scandal that some other big stuff has slipped by, nearly unnoticed. First, Bob Woodward's book is, as everyone has already noticed, mostly the same old stuff, but from a source that seems to have had his eyes opened.

What? Bush lied, you say? What? Iraq's not going well? --You don't say.

The news there, really, is that Woodward wrote it. One of Bush's biggest enablers over the past six years, he finally recognizes that the Great Leader was a sham. Unfortunately, the new stuff in his book -- in particular, details about the administration's failures to deal with the threat of al Qaeda in the months before 9/11 -- has been drowned out by the more lurid news that the Republican Party leadership has been covering for the sexual exploitation of young congressional pages.

Of course, it has been interesting to discover that the anti-gay party is largely made up of closeted gays. I wonder when that list is going to hit the Internet...

Most interesting, though, is the implication of the sudden resignation of Karl Rove's assistant, Susan Ralston. The White House had claimed they hardly knew Jack Abramoff, finally admitted that he'd been there a couple of times, showed us a picture of him standing in the background -- remember, they had to draw a circle around his head, so we'd know which one was him.

Now it turns out he basically had an employee working full-time inside the White House. Susan Ralston was getting very nice bennies from Abramoff in exchange for information from the inside, and, apparently, was passing strategies and information in to the administration, as well.

This is not borderline scandalous, this is outrageous. Abramoff was a crook, flat out. And he wasn't just hanging around the free food at the President's parties, he had an office and staff right there, in Karl Rove's section of the White House.

This lady didn't even bother to say she had to spend more time with her family. The news got out, she quit. Fast as Foley.

The Post nailed it pretty good yesterday:

REMEMBER WHEN President Bush promised to restore honor and integrity to the Oval Office? He doesn't either, it would seem. A report by the House Government Reform Committee, based on three years of e-mails and billing records from disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff's former law firm, detailed how Mr. Abramoff and his team billed clients for hundreds of contacts with White House officials and dispensed coveted tickets to sporting events and concerts to favored officials, including adviser Karl Rove and Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman, then the White House political director.

A particular recipient of Mr. Abramoff's favors was his former assistant, Susan B. Ralston. She had gone to the White House to work for Mr. Rove but stayed in close touch with her former boss -- more than half of Mr. Abramoff's 66 contacts with the White House were with her. Mr. Abramoff turned to her as a conduit to Mr. Rove and others, seeking her help in placing allies in government or obtaining other favors, not always successfully. Ms. Ralston, in turn, used Mr. Abramoff as a personal Ticketmaster service, taking free tickets to Bruce Springsteen and Andrea Bocelli concerts, Capitals, Wizards and Orioles games. When Ms. Ralston was looking for four floor seats for a Wizards game -- valued at $1,300 -- Mr. Abramoff emailed back, "For you? Anything!"

You might think a White House worried about honor and integrity would want to look more closely at Mr. Abramoff's dealings. You might think it would be concerned about whether Ms. Ralston violated the rules that prohibit administration officials from taking gifts valued at more than $20, though there is an exception for gifts based on preexisting friendships. You might think it would want to make clear that -- whether technically permitted by the rules or not -- this is unacceptable behavior from government officials.

Not this White House, which has been resolutely incurious about Mr. Abramoff's activities and equally unwilling to provide information about it -- making it impossible to know how many of the reported contacts are classic Abramoff puffery and how many real. "Nothing more will come from the report, no further fallout from the report," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said Friday. 'No Further Fallout'

Ah, that old word "incurious" again. I think that's the one that'll follow him. Like "Honest Abe." "Incurious George."

There's more, you might enjoy it.

It's really that first sentence that says it all. Bush promised to restore honor and integrity.

Look, anybody can screw up. Everybody has good intentions. Some people try harder than others, some people talk about it more than others. And, sadly, there seems to be an inverse correlation between those two things.

Why would it be, that those who talk most about "morality" and "values" and even "honor" and "integrity" are the very ones who have the least of any of these qualities?

This is the issue we face in Montgomery County, as we struggle to put together an accurate and fair sex-ed curriculum. We have a group of people howling about values and morality, but we have caught them lying countless times, caught them pulling dirty tricks -- here, try this, try this web site: www.teachthefacts.com. See what I mean? Is that the morality they're bragging about, buying up a domain name just like ours and pointing it at their own site? They've lied about what's in the curriculum, they lied about planning to sue, they lie about what we say and who we're associated with ... anything. They have neither values nor morals, neither honor nor integrity. These are just code-words, in the President's administration and in the betterthanyou movement from top to bottom. They want you to think they have honor, they have morals, and you don't.

When you get to the bottom of it, we all want the same things. We want our kids to be safe, happy, well-informed. We want to preserve innocence in their young years, and draw them into the baffling dilemmas of adulthood at a bearable pace. We want our children to grow up to be moral, to have pure values, to have honor and integrity. People on both sides want that.

But one side claims the title for themselves, and accuses the other side of being immoral, valueless, dishonorable, lacking integrity. It seems that the very act of doing that, the very act of claiming superiority for yourself, somehow puts you at risk, even as you pull it around your shoulders you forfeit your right to wrap yourself in that particular warm blanket. It is as if the claim voids itself, saying it out loud makes it not-true.

Has ever an honorable man tried to convince the world of his own honor? Do moral people go around telling everyone how moral they are?

I don't know why it's like that, but it seems to be a fundamental rule of human nature: morality, values, honor, integrity are titles that have to be earned, that are bestowed by others. Never trust anyone who claims these things for themselves.