who wants to blog when there's so much to read?

So much scandal to read, so little time to write. I imagine serious writers must close themselves off from such distractions to get anything done.

Thank goodness I've never been confused for a serious writer.

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As this whole Foleygate thing has mushroomed, I am reminded of something a friend once told me. We were talking about criminals and the problem of parole.

‘Here are people with impulse-control problems, and little discipline. They get parolled and have to govern themselves, adhering to a stricter set of rules than those they could not live up to before. Is it surprising how often parole is violated?'

And then I think of legislators. Makers of laws, but most often left to police themselves. Righteous in the rule of others, but undisciplined and flawed in self-governance.

I am doing a certain amount of catching the innocent up along with the guilty. But then when the caucuses put self-preservation above self-control one cannot simply rail at the faceless body, impotent to vote down the individual member.

Individual virtue in legislators and their leaders can command loyalty only so long as the politician wields it and votes it.

The minute it is set aside for expedience it is an elective virtue and not native.

Interesting that “elect” is the root of election and selective. One can only hope more votes will be cast electively and selectively than blindly this November.